Everyone faced the same way. They stared at the backs of heads and imagined what the faces looked like.
	Todd looked up and maybe east as planes crossed the sky like plaid in a toddler’s box of baby blue sand. The prairie pulled the lowlands to the mountains. But it was still so far away and it made him terrible. Everything around him was ancient.
	When things were big and old, Todd got stomach ulcers. And he’d forgotten his pills at home. They were Tums. Actually Rolaids. Maybe he’d bought the ones that didn’t have a name. They were cheaper and he was almost broke. Is it a pill if you chew it, he wondered. Maybe a lozenge.
	He loosened his grip on the wheelchair’s plastic handles and pushed Gracie with his palms. The line was so long. Almost impossible how long the line was. And what if it rained. What if the clouds became cauliflowers and everything thundered. He’d forgotten the tarp that he’d usually wrap around her body. But fall in the foothills were made of clouds that looked like dried tumors that were washed away by tomorrow or a few minutes.
	City organizers turned one way roads into temporary parking lots. They had asked everyone to find alternative transportation downtown. If there wasn’t any transit available and you lived too far to walk or bike, they’d arrange a spot in the one way parking lot as long as your address was verifiable, your vehicle was at maximum capacity, and if you called beforehand to make the proper arrangements, though few did. They half expected to sort it out when they got there.  But they were turned back and their license plates were noted on heavy duty tablets
	 Barely armed personnel were lined up along the single lane exit routes for the people who’d been told to Please turn around and leave your vehicle at home. Return to the lineup at the nearest possible opportunity. Thank you. Yes, the trains were full, but they were also free. Yes, I understand, but sir, you might consider walking down with you and your family. Their marshalling wands waved Carry on, off you go, have a nice day, and see you soon. Their blue vests looked brand new and their khakis were nicely ironed and cinched with utility belts.
	Every forty five seconds or so Todd would notice that the gap between him and the person in front of them was big enough to push Gracie’s wheelchair a couple feet further. He’d say something like, “Alright, here we go,” or “Ohp, just about lost our spot, Gracie,” or “Huf, okay, let’s get this show on the road,” and then he’d smile like he was late to a very important meeting or as if he didn’t get the joke. She’d never say anything back. She always seemed to be sleeping. Sometimes when he talked the skin over her slightly elongated right jawline would stutter. Or her left arm would flap. Or her eyelids would twitch, her pupils somehow gone, eyeballs rolled along some mystery axis to another direction in her head. She’d learned to stress the point. She was sleeping. Couldn’t you tell.
	There was another gap. Another push. A breeze showed the yellow of her leg. Todd tucked Gracie’s blanket under her thighs. “There you go, Gracie. Nice and warm.” He patted her burnt looking hair and gave another push. She’d been so pretty once, he thought. And now I hide her yellow thighs.
	Today was the beginning of the Great Relocation. It had been announced by a text message that referred to a website with the press release. Letters were mailed for old people and the disabled.
	“Now how do they expect me to stand in a line like that. I can barely stand at the top of my stairs for heaven’s sakes!”
	The homeless were informed at soup kitchens.
	“What’s another lineup,” they drawled watching gravy slide off their spoons and onto their laps.
	Hobby airplanes were hired to drag illegible banners over the city and its suburbs. Social media became a heavily moderated and government influenced forum for local discussion.
	“I really don’t see what the point is. I get that it’s historical and I’m all for diversity and all but for Pete’s sakes! I have a life here. Come on Trudeau. Make the right decision.”
	 But Betty. Remember that this is so much bigger than us. Remember that we’re trying to build a better future. A bigger future. Where we aren’t held back by borders and warring nations and interest payments for international debts! Look around us. Look at the hate. Look at the hunger. I mean, Betty, I know this is hard, but tell me you don’t want a better future for your granddaughter. Isabella is going to live a world that we could never imagine.
	“I can’t believe this is happening. This is insane. This is my country. This is my city.”
	Steve, this must be so frustrating. But sometimes I think we have to give a little to get a little. Jordan, your son.  Do you think he wants to see world hunger? Do you think he wants to see people his own age thirst?
	“I did. I seem to be okay. Maybe it made me stronger. Maybe it made me work harder.”
	I think you missed my point, Steve. Some people don’t even get the chance to work harder.
	“I guess that’s just the luck of the draw. Life isn’t fair.”
	Get out of here with your bigotry, Steve. I hope they send you to Africa. Clown.
	Grace’s head was shaped like a kidney bean. One side was longer than the other and there was a little concavity around her left temple. It looked like the profile of an airline wing that had turned ninety degrees. Sometimes she’d wear baseball caps because she thought they imposed some kind of optical illusion on the new shape of her skull. Her left arm had become a cartoon. It was permanently bent at the elbow and it stayed pressed against her ribcage. You couldn’t pry it out. It felt like cement. Doctors said that it was dying, but how does an arm die?  Her internals were fine, they said. Better than ever, even. Chugging along. But those limbs. Those shapes that she’d become. Her bean head. Her yellow thighs. Her trench feet. Grace thought that maybe God was working his way in. Starting at the ends. Doing the easy stuff first. Maybe her genitals were next. The tips of her nipples. Her shoulder blades. Where would she rot next? What had she done? What had Todd done? And why her? Why him. She’d been so beautiful. So wonderful. Todd and her were ready to start a really lovely family with a home and a little yard and a dog and a two car garage. Sure, it’d be hard. And they’d be heavily in debt. Flat broke. House poor. But they’d be so strong. They’d do it all. They’d save. They’d pay things off. But now this. This hell. Her plans became the backdrop for the nightmare that Todd wheeled her through. Another push. Another foot. Her shoes rubbed the calves of the lady in front of her. She turned around and everyone started apologizing. The line moved forward.
	The first step was registration. What names do they go by? Where do they live? What do they do? What can they do? Are they registered gun owners? What’s their online identity like? Is it hidden? Do they have secrets? Do they have strong opinions? How do they react to diversity? It was important that they got everybody down they said. But they knew most of it already. They just wanted to know who would show up. Who listened? Who didn’t? Who ran for the mountains and into the woods?
	When it was over, they said there’d be no more war and no more terrorism and water would be cheaper because they could organize its distribution more effectively and they could build treatment plants pretty much anywhere now that the borders were gone. There wasn’t any reason to think that the water in India would be any less drinkable, any less crisp and delicious than the water in Luxembourg or Toronto. Millions of white people felt abandoned. Cuckolded. Angry they were destined for the heat.
	“Fuck them. They’ve always had too much.”
	But they’d worked so hard for it.
	“And a mother of six carrying water in a clay pot balanced on her head isn’t working quite hard enough?”
	 And now what. Tunisia? Turkey? Australia? The damned Congo? How was Clara ever going to survive in the damned Congo? Hm? There’s no A/C in the damned Congo. There’s beasts in the damned Congo.
	“Because everything would be more efficient,” they said. “And besides. They’d be rational about it. They promised as much.”
	They could do anything now. It was like they’d won a war.  There were rumours that the Alps were to become an enormous resort for G8 senior citizens. They were going to put banners up at all the Swiss airports. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK.
	Todd dug around his backpack. He’d slung it around the handles of Gracie’s wheelchair. He pushed aside plastic bags that each had six or seven plastic pill bottles in them. The bags were labelled with various times in thick black marker. Seven o’clock. Breakfast pills. Not to be eaten on an empty stomach. Do not mix with coffee. Ten o’clock. First coffee. He remembered the afternoon they organized her medication together. He remembered her laughing at the names he wrote on the bags. She laughed even when they weren’t clever. Noon. Lunch. One o’clock. Nap time.  Five o’clock. High tea. She just liked being there with him. Everything was falling apart but his smile looked like a bowl for catching the pieces. His frowns would tip them over and let them drop to the floor. But that only happened sometimes. When he was tired. Or when she was tired and nothing seemed to help. When she slept all day or pretended to.
	Four o’clock, he dug. Six thirty. Evening nap. Six am. First alarm. Eight o’clock. Pie. Ten thirty. The munchies. He grabbed a snack size tin of potato chips and popped its lid open. He’d already eaten half of them. He’d read reports that Pringles gave you cancer. How could they, he thought. They tasted so good.
	He leaned over Gracie and checked that she was still covered. Still warm, he thought. He saw the ring. She hadn’t taken it off. How could she. Her hands didn’t work like that anymore. Did he still want to. Was it still the same? What would it be like. Did he still want to. He still loved her.
	Another push. Another foot.
	Calgary had died. It was the price of oil. It was its only industry and thousands of people were sitting at home every day. They were learning to paint, they watched TV shows and funny movies, they recertified employable skills and they finished up their community college diplomas in business management. Everybody was so sad and they worried about what was happening to their city and their lives. They drank too much and they smoked too much pot. They sold tools and bought ground beef. They watched sports. Sometimes they’d go for runs along the river when they started to feel fat. None of them ate steak anymore because it was too expensive. Mostly pork and chicken, but only if it was on sale. And never fresh. Every household had learned maybe six or seven budget recipes and they just repeated them every week. They spent their employment insurance on mortgages and truck payments and on Fridays at Original Joe’s restaurant on loaded nachos and discount pints because they deserved something, Jesus, anything.
	“How’s Stu been with the job hunt, Sal?”
	“Ohh, well. You know how it is. Price of oil. There’s really not much. I’ve been thinking of picking something up.”
	“Oh well that’s a good idea. Might be kind of fun too. Get out there. Meet some people. Everyone’s been so depressed lately. What were you thinking of looking for?”
	“I don’t know, maybe retail. There’s this place at the mall that sells soaps.”
	“Oh Sal! That’s such a good idea. You’d smell so good all the time. I should really talk to Mike about it. I should do something. It’s just too much. I am just so bored.”
	“Yah and you know the mall seems to be hiring all the time. Sure. Lots of foreigners. Lots of kids. But you know, if Stu really wanted something, he could find it. It doesn’t need to be much. He’s too proud I think.”
	“Mike’s the same way. Don’t worry about it honey. They’ll come around. They always do.”
	Gracie was actually sleeping this time. She dreamed about the beach. She hoped they’d send her to a place with a beach. A bubble popped at the corner of her mouth and a bit of spit dribbled down and landed on the blanket just about her boob. They were still firm. Somehow she still had really lovely boobs. God was being so strange to her. She’d never been treated this way before. She didn’t even think she believed in God anymore. But maybe just a little bit. She dreamed about the beach.
	It never really looked like a line. Maybe at the beginning but it was a scourge now. This undulating mass of people. But if you got close enough, so close that you were actually standing in the line, you’d see that each vein of this bureaucratic tumor was separated by those yellow seatbelt looking dividers stretching from one pole to the next like scars.
	A family somewhere ahead took two steps and the rest behind pulsed forward like tipped dominoes. A mom with three children unzipped a backpack and grabbed a few baggies. Tuna fish sandwiches with diced pickles and discount mayonnaise. Did they eat tuna fish where they were going? Was there mayonnaise? Would they ever have to stand in line again? God forbid they tried to take her children. But no. It wasn’t that kind of lineup. This was a democracy. The people would never allow it. But still. There was something familiar about it. Something that told her it had been a pretty good idea to bring the leashes. Her children sat on the pavement and waited for mom to tug again and say their names.
	“Hey. Hey let’s go. We’re moving. Jessica. Push your brother a bit. We’re moving.”
	Gracie’s chapped lips parted maybe half a centimeter and Todd filled the hole with a straw. She was happy to be so warm and she liked how it felt to be tucked in. The blanket felt like arms. Todd probably knew that she wasn’t sleeping anymore but it was just so easy to keep looking this way. You can’t suck a straw when you’re sleeping. Todd wasn’t stupid. Neither was she. They pretended together.
	Different women chattered behind them.
	“I mean sure. I guess it makes sense but it just seems a little drastic you know?”
	“Well I know what you mean but I think I’m just excited to see the world.”
	“I’ve never really travelled before.”
	“I love travelling. You just want to meet a man.”
	“Oh shush. We can’t all be a little miss lucky.”
	“Oh come on now. John’s got his faults. We all do.”
	“Jesus, Mary. Drinking two beers a night isn’t a fault.”
	“No no it’s not that. He’s just so quiet sometimes. I don’t know what he’s thinking.”
	Why was Todd still such a gentleman. Was he a saint. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he fucked other women.  Maybe he thought she was okay with it. Maybe he felt bad because everybody that got to know her hated her but felt bad for her and maybe he hated her the absolute most and felt the most bad. Maybe he was a little bit psycho. Maybe she was a fetish. Maybe he liked the little vagina that she couldn’t feel anymore. Maybe Todd loved her but how. Maybe she didn’t love him as much as she needed him. Maybe he knew everything. Maybe she talked in her sleep.
	The lineup was starting to loosen a bit and there was space in between the rows where men in blue polos walked and talked to everyone, one family at a time.
	“Well I guess it makes sense. I mean. People have been coming here from other places for a hundred years. Guess it just makes sense now.”
	“I want to go to France.”
	“You know France just seemed to be a little bit too put together for me. I mean, there I was in my beige adventure pants in this beautiful city and we were at all these museums and Don was wearing a T-shirt that said Canada on it. It was just a little too much I guess. And everything was so old. I like Maui. I like the beach.”
	“Yah, I like Maui too.”
	Todd looked at her. He couldn’t see the new shape of her head from this angle. He couldn’t see her limbs or her feet or that he hands were claws. It was all covered by the blanket. He remembered when they tried to have sex that night. They’d never talked about stuff like that but Gracie had noticed he was always hard coming out of the shower. He looked at women on the pathways. His web history became eclectic. But she didn’t know how to talk about it. Too close to the heart of it.
	One day she had someone help her email a note.
	Todd, I know that you have desires. You’re a man. I’m a woman. Still. And I get this has been really hard on you. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I need so much right now. But I know that you need things too. Let’s have a night. I’ll do my best to seem as normal as possible. I don’t know how you still think I’m beautiful but I’ll try. I love you. I’ll try so hard.
	He’d walked into the bedroom. It was raining outside and the window was open a little. The air was refreshing. Gracie was laying on the bed. She was wearing her baseball cap and she kept her head facing the open window. He tried to move it. To kiss her. But she said no. He kissed her breasts and they were warm. Everything was warm. She was almost sweating.
	“How did you.”
	“I had to ask a nurse. She was very understanding.”
	The blankets were spread in folds that hid her limbs. They tucked under her armpits and where her legs met her pelvis. Her torso seemed to float on a mound of pillows.
	“I love you,” he said.
	“I love you, too.”
	And then they fucked and then he came and then they cried because it was just such an awful sight. They couldn’t bare it and they never did it again.
	“When are you going to go next?”
	“Where?”
	“Maui.”
	“Oh well I don’t know. Maybe Christmas.”
	“Ooo that’ll be so much fun. What a great time. I love Maui.”
	The men with the tablets had their navy polos tucked into their pants. They talked under overcurved brims without looking up. They tapped away on their glass screens while nervous heads of households made sweaty replies and they’d direct them to different lineups down the way. People were separated depending on last name. Everyone that was affected complained. They were assured that this was only for present efficiencies and that it would have no bearing on their eventual destinations. They were relieved to know that everything would be taken care of.
	Another touch. Another push. Another foot.
	“Identification please.”
	Todd’s wallet was already out and he handed the blue man their cards.
	“Nicholas, Todd. And hers.”
	“It’s right there. Under mine. Yah. There.”
	“Adams, Grace. Thank you. Married?”
	“No, our, uh. Names are different, see.”
	“What’s your relation?”
	“She’s my fiancé. Does that count?”
	“Count for what, sir.”
	“I don’t know, it just seems important.”
	Grace could hear everything. She thought she might blush.
	“Mr. Nicholas, if you wouldn’t mind entering the line down that way twenty meters or so. It’s labelled N. You can’t miss it. Thank you.”
	Todd looked down at Gracie. Her eyes were open.
	“Ah. Um. Sorry, Gracie here has certain incapacities. A disability. Would you mind if she joined me? I’d really appreciate it.”
	“Again, sir. This is just for efficiencies. We have a volunteer here ready to take care of your fiancé, sir. You have no reason to worry. I assure you.”
	“I-I know. I understand. It’s just.”
	Her eyes were closed. I fucked everything up, she thought. If only we were married. If only I hadn’t gone rotten. Gone bad.
	“It’s just it would really mean a lot.”
	“Sir. You have nothing to worry about. Grant here is going to take perfect care of Grace for you.”
	A man with a wonderful smile walked towards them. Todd recognized him. He was an orderly at the hospital that Gracie had her tests done at.
	“Grant. If you wouldn’t mine, please take Ms. Adams to the A line. Thank you.”
	He wheeled her off. Just like that. She was gone. Goodbye Gracie.
	“You’ll received your fiancé at the end of the line, Mr. Nicholas. Once everything is settled, you understand.”
	Todd walked to the N line. N for Nicholas. He put his hands in his pockets and checked for his wallet and his keys and his phone. His phone. Good. Sometimes he left it in her wheelchair.
	He scrolled. Another foot. Another step. Maybe they’d send him to Egypt. He wanted to see the pyramids.
	“I like how Maui isn’t really that hot.”
	“Yah that’s true. But I like how there’s more sun in Mexico.”
	“I could see that.”
	She was okay, thought Todd. She seemed okay. Everything would be okay. He’d see her at the end of the line. When everything was settled.