Malagash
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: October 10, 2017 8:31 PM | Last Updated: October 12, 2017
Joey Comeau
Sunday's father is dying of cancer. They've come home to Malagash, on the north shore of Nova Scotia, so he can die where he grew up. Her mother and her brother are both devastated. But devastated isn't good enough. Devastated doesn't fix anything. Sunday has a plan.
She's started recording everything her father says. His boring stories. His stupid jokes. Everything. She's recording every single "I love you" right alongside every "Could we turn the heat up in here?" It's all important.
Because Sunday is writing a computer virus. A computer virus that will live secretly on the hard drives of millions of people all over the world. A computer virus that will think her father's thoughts and say her father's words. She has thousands of lines of code to write. Cryptography to understand. Exploits to test. She doesn't have time to be sad. Her father is going to live forever.
From the book
"A weight will lift." My father has a big cup of crushed ice that he keeps tilting side to side. It hasn't melted enough yet. "A weight will lift," he says.
He's tired of having to say "I know" in that reassuring voice, again and again. "I know, Sunday. I know." So he's found this new way of saying it. "A weight will lift. A leaf will fall. Fresh white snow will blanket this whole sleepy town."
"That's very poetic," I tell him.
He tilts his crushed ice again.
"Sunday, you are my daughter," he says, holding out his hand for mine. I take it. "You are my daughter," he says, "and it breaks my heart that the day has finally come for you to learn this hard and simple truth."
From Malagash by Joey Comeau ©2017. Published by ECW Press.