Indie

A dark book cover with the silhouette of a ruined downtown Toronto. The title is Indie.
October 20, 2022
Fiction

Midas returned to Toronto with a new business plan. After years of big deals in the south he decided to do it better. It was always so hard to make money and do good at the same time. With his indie café he’d do both. But this reinvention comes at a mysterious price as certain visitors arrive with insistent business propositions.

Making it more difficult, the town he’d left was as overwhelmed by the notorious sins as everywhere else, buckling under ecological decay, a weakening state, rampant fraud and violence. As he defends his café, his world morphs in bizarre and threatening ways. One wonders if his growing horror is real or a distraught misperception of reality, and a clue comes from an unlikely place: his favorite customer.

Zora has her own troubles. A progressive artist, she’d recently quit a revolutionary movement until she’s mired back in. Her journey and perception of reality morphs too, and they both participate in a grander struggle over the absurd elusiveness of truth.

Author(s)

Paul MacLeod

Paul MacLeod has worked in law, public sector management and business in several capacities over his career, always with an abiding interest in access to justice.  Eventually, he turned to creative writing in his spare time. This is his first published work of fiction.