Furby Street

It was always too cold on Furby Street.
-52, and someone still left the window cracked
like we were airing out a truth we hadn’t spoken yet.
“What the hell, Winnipeg?”
someone shouted into the night,
and Donna, from the Northwest Territories,
laughed like only a northerner could.

We were all nineteen or close enough to fake it,
pieced together from opposite ends of the map—
shared walls, shared vodka,
shared everything but last names.
It was a student house in the loosest sense:
lectures in the day,
Kink after dark,
Jeopardy every afternoon,
my backpack waiting by the door
for another sleepy Philosophy class
I barely remember but never missed.

Groceries from The Bay—
because yes, The Bay sold groceries,
and it felt like a secret only we knew.
Perogies were currency.
Marcus made pizza from scratch and love.
We all said thank you with our mouths full.

There was a food thief.
A destroyer of leftovers.
It had to be June—
but that’s just a theory.

We met a girl once—taller than reason—
who demanded money for McDonald’s fries
like it was a tax on the absurd.
We gave it to her. Obviously.
There were men who followed us home,
but we laughed too loud to be afraid.
There were stabbings in the street—
two people clutching their bellies
like they had a stomach ache
and then just… walking away.
What a city. What a time.

We drank Absolut
with reverence and rebellion—
bottle by bottle,
funded by the French government
through generous scholarship dollars.
We lined them up like trophies.
We toasted: Vive la France!
And we meant it.

The walls were thin.
The heater barely worked.
But the house throbbed with life,
laughter leaking through the floorboards,
music in the shower,
dishes in the sink,
a language of belonging
we never had to learn.

And now—
we are scattered.
Time-zoned and suitcased.
Wearing office clothes.
Filling spreadsheets instead of bathtubs
with warmth and noise and cheap shampoo.
The house is still there, maybe.
Or maybe not.
I’m not sure I want to know.

Because Furby Street wasn’t just a place.
It was a moment.
A wild, impossible, stitched-together moment
where the world cracked open
and let us pretend we had all the time in it.

We didn’t.

But oh,
we lived like we did.