The Frankly Bob Awards for outstanding visual arts and literary work.

Frankly Bob Archives

2005 Recipients

First Place- Deb Sharpe (Dif) for "I'm Not Hungry"

The 2005 Jurors were Robert Priest, Marguerite Andersen, and Paul Savoie.

I'M NOT HUNGRY by dj sharpe

She lay down on her lonely bed . She prayed....thank you for my life,,,help me.. help me not take my life for granted ...help me be a better mother ... thank you for this bed...thank you for sleep.

She closed her eyes and snuggled down. Her stomach rumbled.. She had an image in her mind of a plate with toasted bread cut into little fingers , like her mother had prepared for her forty years ago, a little egg cup with a soft boiled egg in it, beside the toast. She had been allowed to cut the top of the egg and dip the fingers of toast into it... she had been a picky eater in those days of plentiful food.

Her mothers refrigerator had been green... avocado green. It was a tall , wide contraption with a large freezer .Every Friday morning her mother would clean out bits of leftover salad in tupperware containers and Wednesdays pot roast remains. Every Friday night her mother would put on some lipstick and go with her husband , in the car , to the large grocery store in the town.
This was usually the only time her mother left the house. She would push a large cart around the enormous store, making choices and decisions about what to drop into her cart,.Large , whole chickens, wrapped in plastic. Boxes of chocolate cookies with white icing in the middle. Bunches of bananas . perfectly yellow and never over-ripe. String bags with a dozen large oranges. Grapefruits . pink and juicey inside. Cheeses in large blocks, yellow and orange.Big boxes of cereal, with games and toys inside the box. Jugs of milk , gallons of white, creamy milk poured on cereals, in glasses, in sauces. Bags of bread , soft and white -full of air and sugar. Eggs in their white cardboard nests - a dozen to each box . Bacon wrapped and sliced and ready to fry.

She turned over in the bed. Her bones sharp and brittle. She had four slices of bread in a bag in her little kitchen downstairs. In the morning she would toast those slices of bread for her half-grown children for breakfast. There was a little bit of peanut butter in the jar, no margarine left.

They had eaten last night as a family. A meal of rice and dehydrated vegetables , meant to be used on a camping trip or in emergency situations. She had gotten the food from the food bank. She had eaten very little, just enough to keep the kids company. The rice tasted of chemicals from the little packet of seasonings -she found it nasty , although the children ate it up. She took her share and packed it in two little containers that had once held yogurt. This would be the childrens lunch. She hoped some of their friends at school would share their drinks and fruit from their lunches. She prayed
“let them be nice and generous and not shame my kids for not having”.She tossed again and lay on her side. Bitter tears choked her. Her stomach gurgled and ached.. She considered getting up and going downstairs, rifling through the cupboards to look for something to eat.. A forgotten cracker, one of the pieces of bread set aside for the kids breakfast. A wave of exhaustion overcame her. Sleep, sleep would be the best thing. Dreams of her mothers kitchen, opening the fridge and choosing a piece of cold fried chicken...She fell and fell into a deep , disturbing dream.

She was with her father , dead these twenty years, and they were hoeing potatoes under a hot sun .Her father was distressed.” I didn’t fight the Nazis only to have you hoeing potatoes for them” he said in her dream. She was so happy to see his face in the dream, In this dream she hoed awkwardly., she had never been in a potato field before .She kept slicing the potatoes in half with her hoe and stealing glances at her fathers face .He hoed on , sweat dripping down his brow and looked up once to smile at her - a beaming loving smile and she cried “daddy!” as she woke up .

Daylight was here, she could hear her children waking up in the next room. She prayed, as she had taught herself, thank you for this day, help me help me help me.
The children got themselves ready for school. They washed and dressed and ate their toast . They could pretty well take care of themselves. One was in highschool and the other would finish elementary this year. They would have no chance at university or jobs. They could become drug dealers or sex-trade workers. Perhaps they could find service jobs , at fast food restaurants or behind the counter at a movie theater or a café. By stringing three of four of these McJobs together they could possibly earn enough to pay rent on a little apartment and buy TTC tickets to get to their different shifts. The children did not accept their fate, they spoke of going to art college and the boy wanted to be an author. They believed they had a chance to grow up , do things , go places. She, their mother had no hopes for them. She almost wished she had abandoned them in the beginning , when things had gotten so rough.

When was that , anyway? Maybe 1995 when the government had changed so drastically
Women, single unloved , unsupported mothers like herself were advised to give up their children at that time. It was child abuse , they were told not to be able to feed your children. If you loved them , you would do what was best for them . The best interest of the child , was the term they used. Children were put into something they called “care”. Families were paid a small amount of money to raise these children. The birth mothers were told that the children would be adopted by affluent families and given all the advantages, that the mothers could not provide. Many women agreed to this relinquishing of their children, convinced they were doing the right thing. She had clung to her children , confused - thinking she could not lose them, the feel of their skins, their funny little faces and funny little ways .They had only been seven and three at the time, They had never been away from her and they were afraid when the :care worker” came to their house and advised her to put the children into care. They looked at her with pinched faces, her daughter had had pink eye, at the time. “ I will not” she said to the care worker. Her voice so strong and sure it suprised her. The worker asked her children if they wanted to live in a nice house with a pool in the backyard and a car to drive to school in. Her daughter looked interested “what about my mum?” she wanted to know. The girl had looked the worker in the eye“will my mum come too” The worker blushed and did not answer. “Fuck you” said the little girl.
The worker turned to the mother “See, this is what you get... please reconsider putting these children into care”. But the mother would not.

The childrens father , a debilitated drug addict had taken official responsibility for the children when the government policies demanded that all children be supported by their fathers. He collected the food rations and the stipend for the children and they often chased him when they
saw him in the neighborhood demanding money and treats. Sometimes she begged him for some money or food coupons and he would slap at her , tell her to ‘fuck herself’ , but occasionally he would shove a coin into her hand or yell up to the kids to come and get a loaf of bread he had scored.

She grew thinner and more wiry as she aged. Her own mother had softened and blurred with age , only losing weight the year before she died of congestive heart failure. But she had not gained that middle aged spread women feared. Her muscles , once smooth with strength became elongated and stringy over her thirties, into her forties. So little body fat covered her small frame that she shivered in the cold..She literally ate like a bird, cracking tiny sunflower seeds with her teeth and plucking dried berries from a bin in the old fashioned stores she was allowed to shop in.

It is 2005 , now. Ten years of sanctions for poor people. Women and children on half rations. Ten year olds who have never eaten their fill, right here. In Ontario. In downtown Toronto , a stones throw from Bay St. and Queens Park - women fall asleep dreaming of food and children wake up hungry. The poor are among us. Women still give their children away , starved out by the state.
Fathers cling to their children through economic dominance. To be born poor is to be branded young.
Social housing sounds like a disease , you are born in the projects and there is no way out.

She rose from her warm bed to the bathroom shower. She sang a deep internal song of gratitude and joy to the hot water. The soap lathered creating a rose fragrance throughout the little flat.
A smell of coffee floated in...as her beautiful daughter entered the tiny bathroom. Adoring her adorable face in the mirror, holding her cup of illicit coffee (stolen from the food bank while on volunteer youth duty); this amazing bag of molucules was her child! Grown to almost woman, taller than herself and stronger. Too tough and too cute with mismatched shoes and graffiti on the backpack. The ever - present-good for- teefing , bulging promise of a future-
backpack.

The mother wrapped herself in a thick, luxurious terry robe , with “The Royal York Hotel”embroidered on the back She had picked it up from donations at the food bank.
Today would be another day of foraging and gathering. Sorting through the discards of the affluent , the waste and decay of her fellow man.

Her son sat at the small table, he looked up with a loving smile. “Want some toast?” he asked offering his plate...Oh no thanks, honey” she answered pouring a cup of fragrant coffee from a little pot “ I’m not hungry.”