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Illustration by Jeannie Phan

Trails

In Lister Town

Author Jason Lee Norman transforms a campus memory into a work of flash fiction.

By Jason Lee Norman, '06 BA

May 09, 2018 •

Imagine a town of 700 people. Imagine its houses and shops and schools. Imagine Main Street (every town has a Main Street). Now imagine they built this town all at once, over just one summer - furnished every house, poured every foundation, laid every pipe and stocked all the shops. That was Lister Hall.

We were the first citizens of Lister Hall and everything we did was the first thing ever done there. We were the first to flush the toilets, lie on the mattresses, slam the doors, mark up the walls. I sat in my room, the first to arrive and therefore the first to choose my side. The inaugural resident waiting for her roommate. I could feel her presence before she walked in. The kind of energy you get from rubbing your wool socks on the carpet, the anticipation before the spark. That was Tina. Her opinions entered the room before she did. "I never wanted to live here. I wanted to live in Pembina." Well, I'm Ellen, I said.

They built us a town and we built a friendship. Fifty-three years later, she still reminds me she never even wanted a roommate.

This piece of flash fiction was inspired by Ellen Ogilvy, '67 BA, '84 Dip(Ed), who remembers her first meeting with her new roommate, Tina Matiisen, '67 BA. Submit your own memory at newtrail@ualberta.ca.

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