A Single Shot

Now? I don’t know why. Now. But I’m finally writing this. I have changed too often to fit this event into some linear sequence of time. Age 0-100. I’d struggle to call mine a life. I’ve lived lives. Born, turned 80, 54, 2 then I found myself at 26. Numbers are cultural, and some of us don’t belong to One. I don’t write this now to make sense of anything. I don’t believe in sense. Meaning is an invention, a creative act. I write for the Story.

It was midnight. She woke me up by pulling firmly on my dirty blonde hair. I turned over in my sleeping bag and mumbled. She pulled harder. It was odd for her to do that, so I found my light and shone it into the vast expanse of the desert. I stood. Sand fell from me and made a shimmering noise as it hit my bag then spread back onto the red desert floor. “What is it?” I followed her sound. I tripped on a stunted bush. My heart started to beat faster as I awoke. “What is it?” I asked louder. Then my light landed on her. She had drank it. A bottle of poison lay next to her body. 

I immediately picked her up and began swirling her around, trying to induce vomiting. A bit came out, but not enough.

That night curiously lengthened into the longest of any I've ever lived. When the last star went out and the sun had laid itself across the earth, I did it. The thing I would never dream of doing, but somehow, in its non-sensical way, was now the most merciful thing I could do. The shot went into her and burst something deep within me that I’d never again regain. She lay still on the earth. Red spilling into red.

I never let their questions enter me. “What if…” This wasn’t a choice, to walk across the desert. I had to. 

That shot has changed every day and moment I’ve lived since. A single shot. But I still find beauty in the colour Red, for it is a story unto itself.

Ancestors

Her eyes focused on her shadow. The sun was bright and intense high above, illuminating the blue sky.  The people surrounded her, lying on the ground, dying. Or dead. She knew because of the smell. The grass blew back and forth. Seeds lifted from the ground and swirled into the air then disappeared. Wouldn’t that be nice, she thought, to be like a seed. Here one minute, gone the next, but never truly gone. 

The jingles on her dress chimed against one another. She felt the pounding of the drum under her feet where the earth breathed to its rhythm. It was all she could do. If only there were others, she thought. 

Her shadow left her side. It began to dance gracefully, powerfully. A grass dancer. Then he divided in two. Fancy shawl. Then she divided once more, until all around the arbor shadows danced to the drumbeat. Other sounds of jingles joined with hers. Then, from the shadows, their physical forms erupted.

The first plant to respond was the strawberry. It fell from the beadwork of a woman’s regalia in front of her, whom she recognized as her great-great aunt. She didn’t know how she knew it was her relative, but she knew. The strawberry began to pulse and its vines moved outside the dance circle and began to cover the piles of dead and dying bodies. Next the cedar tree leaned over from the forest and dropped her greenery. The smell was rich and sweet. Then the otter ran out of the water and began to tie the various plants together. Other animals and birds joined in until a blanket had been made.

No one stopped dancing.

Finally the night came. He was all deep blues and purples at first. Then he was black with small points of light everywhere. 

The cries from the drum suddenly became louder, more urgent. The beat changed. All of the dancers raised their eagle feathers. Bezhig, niizh, niswi, niiwin.  Then silence.

It was done.

The girl kneeled down, exhausted. The other dancers disappeared and her shadow was at her side once more. All around her a beautiful blanket of cedar, strawberries, sumac, mint, wiike, birch, chickory and plants of all sorts covered the ground. Her ancestors.

To transform is to live, and we are all transformers.

Encounter at the Public Library

The woman sat at a table in the public library. Her knit beige cardigan was draped over the back of the chair. The sun, only recently reacquainting itself with Toronto after a long winter, shone through the window. The warmth had caused the woman to take off the lighter cardigan to reveal a striped pink button-up blouse. She opened a week-by-week calendar book, and laid it next to the classifieds. She began highlighting. After reading certain passages, she busily jotted notes in her book. Whenever someone made a noise she’d look in their direction and stare. Clearly annoyed she would stand and move to another spot, leaving her cardigan draped over the chair. She’d need a place to go back to in case someone made a noise at her new table.

I wondered why she chose the public library if she wanted a quiet spot. The city is huge, surely there are better options for her. Home, maybe? She might live with a daughter who begrudgingly allows her to live there, rent-free. The daughter first accepted her mother hoping she would help take care of her two young children. She soon learned her mother needed more care than the children. Understandably the daughter loses her temper quickly. Not because she lacks love, but because her patience and understanding is spent entirely at work, leaving only a tiny reservoir to draw from at home. Really, I wondered, the public library was the quietest place she could go?

I looked out the large window at the people walking outside. Their pace was less hurried now that the sun was out. It wasn’t exactly warmer yet, but the sun had a slowing quality as people remembered what it feels like to be part of an earth. It is hard to find quiet in a big city, I acknowledged. The woman was now eating a rice and veggie medley from a thermos. It was 5:30pm. I felt sadness. No one should eat dinner alone in the library if they could chose otherwise. The food looked limp and cold, but I liked the brightness of the yellow curry. Her fingernails were painted with a clear polish. Maybe one of her granddaughters painted them for her. Her hair was dyed auburn, one-inch silver roots spread from her part. Her glasses had no lens but showcased brilliant golden frames.

The first time I met this woman was in February. I remember it was a cold evening, because I didn’t take off my black down jacket. My phone had vibrated deep in my pocket. I picked it up and whispered, “hello?” It was my friend. I'd walked over to the bookshelves to talk. The various tables scattered across the ground floor of the library were constantly buzzing with conversation. Overhearing those conversations is how I learned about the standard of deviation, the psychology of anorexia and the basics of Farsi syntax. After several minutes on the phone the woman came up to me. She didn’t say anything, but had just stood across from me, maybe one foot away.

“Hold on,” I'd said to my friend, “Yes?” I asked the woman.

“Quiet” she commanded.

 “I’ll call you back later ok?” I hung up. The woman’s back already faced me as she made her way to one of her many seats. I was annoyed she targeted me when many others around her were speaking too. She hadn’t told any of them to stop. 

I felt bitterness as I thought back to that cold February night. She continued eating her rice medley. I looked again at the sun out the window and breathed deep. Time had moved on and so should I.

After that I only looked up occasionally. She was fumbling with a ladybug pendant that hung from her neck, the wings spread revealing a clock face beneath. Finally she got up to leave. Shortly after her I packed up to go. I noticed she had forgotten her notebook, the one she is always busily writing in. I looked at the first line, “The flaxen-haired girl sat at a table in the public library. Her jacket looked like midnight, and she typed like thunder.” And so it went on. That’s sweet, I thought, she wants to be a writer. I gathered up the remainder of my empty Tupperware from dinner and made my way outside to catch the last few rays before the sun set. 

Pheasants

       "Make sure the knife cuts just the skin. If you press too hard you'll tear the breast meat. Lift the feathers, like this, and the skin will rise with it."

        I watched Dave grasp and pull the feathers upwards, make a small incision, then set down the knife and easily tear apart the pheasant’s belly, revealing a pink breast. It looked shiny against the snow on the picnic table and under the glow of the headlamp. Dave was barely an acquaintance. A friend of a friend whose house I was staying at for a few nights while I traveled around, trying to find a job. The pheasant looked peaceful through this whole process. Eyes closed, limbs relaxed, feathers gently ruffled.

          "There is no bullet hole," Dave informed me as he probed around the bird's insides. "This one died of fright from the gun shot."

         A feeling of compassion overwhelmed me. While the other seven birds in the bag died from the actual penetration of the bullet, this death seemed unnecessary, crueler even. Like an innocent bystander witnessing a massacre. Like someone sitting at home watching calamity on TV, but unable to remove themselves from the hurt. The messiness of life and death pulling this bird in early and took his life through some sense of empathy he held for the others. Dave continued,

       "Sometimes a sound is more deadly than touch." 

       Dave was a philosophy student, getting his PhD. He lived in a simple house with four other guys in Lexington, just outside Boston. From what I could tell it was a house of indifference. They all seemed to avoid each other in the hallways and common rooms. I seemed to be an extension of Dave, ignored but not bothered. I was just grateful for a place to stay. 

       "Maybe we shouldn't eat the meat from this bird." I suggested. Dave just looked at me. "Fear tastes sour," I ventured.

      Dave considered that for a moment then threw the meat into the bag of carcasses.  

      We continued to work on the other birds. I picked one up from the bag. I lifted the feathers, made an incision, and felt the skin tear apart easily revealing the breast. Once the pheasant was open I felt the warmth of its insides. I used the larger knife to snap off the wings and then head. The most difficult was separating the backbone. Finally I felt it crack off and the breast meat was loose in my hand. I delicately picked off the feathers that had attached themselves to the meat, and scraped off and discarded the loose innards. 

        "Zip up the bag, will you? And lets go wash up in the kitchen." 

      My glasses fogged up when we stepped back into the kitchen. I took them off and went to the sink. I watched the blood swirl down the drain, mixing with the water. I dried my hands then went into the living room, picked up the red and black-checkered blanket and lay down to sleep. I had a few job interviews during the day that I needed to be rested for. As I lay down, I suddenly remembered my first encounter with pheasants. 

       The woods were quiet. The songbirds of the other seasons had left and wouldn't return until the snow melted. The snow was up to my knees, so my dad carried me. 

      "Do you remember the song?" He asked me. 

      I nodded. My ability to memorize taught me the feeling of accomplishment. Others marveled that my small mind could retain such large sequences of information. 

       "Do you see her over there? Will you sing the song?" 

       I looked where he was pointing. A small white, gray and brown bird was curled up in the snow. I closed my eyes and began to sing:

Whenever I hear the song of a bird,

or look at the blue, blue sky

whenever I feel the rain on my face

or the wind as it rushes by

whenever I touch a velvet rose

or walk by our lilac tree

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world

Heavn'ly Father created for me.

         I finished singing and opened my eyes. My father's eyes were closed now. He breathed deeply. He found renewal in songs, the sight of a healthy pheasant, the touch of smooth birch bark. I had closely imitated him, finding my favourite colour, songs, foods, books, movies all in his reflection. I felt if I adopted that view of the world I would be safe from the pain, confusion, and anger. Feelings I knew very little of that day I stood knee deep in the snow in my pink snowsuit and sang to the pheasant. 

       

       I sat up on the couch and looked out the window at the icy streets. The house smelled of pheasant. I wanted to open a window but it was so cold outside. How did I end up here? I had once believed in God precisely because it helped me get through the suffering. Then the suffering overcame me. I stopped believing in God because no one who is loving and omnipotent could allow for such pain. Occasionally I would remember the past and what I had once believed, even known. The past sustained me for some time. Then I became numb. I left my job in Seattle and made my way east to Boston. To this couch.  

       A woman walked by outside. I looked at my watch. It was midnight. She was dressed up, hair curled. Several cars drove by. A cat climbed a tree in the neighbours yard. I found a can of febreeze in the bathroom and sprayed the living room to mask the scent of the pheasant. The smell would be gone by morning, the meat ingested by evening. I kneeled down and said a prayer, thanking God for life—this brief moment in eternity— and fell asleep. 

            The morning came quickly. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and blinked. It would be a glasses day again. My contacts bothered me when I was tired. I went into the bathroom and pulled on a pair of black pants, a brown cashmere sweater and brushed my hair out. People always commented on how straight my hair was, and it was mornings like these I was grateful I could look presentable with such little effort. I looked at my watch. My first interview was at 9 a.m. all the way out in Gloucester—about a 45-minute drive from Lexington, on the coast. It would take much longer on public transit. A friend from college had lived in Gloucester for a couple years after graduating, working at the local farm stand. Its not so much that coordinating farm to home projects interested me. I would be close to the ocean. I could walk around the pond that Thoreau built his cabin during his two years of simplicity. That’s just what I needed. A job to support me. A beautiful place to walk. A small community to enjoy. Time to refocus on truth.

            I gently closed the bathroom door and put on my down coat, boots, hat, and gloves. I left a note on the kitchen table for Dave, thanking him for hosting me. I wondered if guys even cared about that kind of thing, but I did it anyways. I picked up my small bag of belongings and headed outside into the cold, but fresh air.

            I took the city bus to Cambridge where I boarded a fifteen passenger van that serviced the coast. I took a seat at the very back. In the first 30 minutes as we headed out of the city we made various stops, different people boarding along the way. I assumed they were mainly commuters. Two women eventually joined me in the back. I looked out the window. It was still dark outside, the sun would rise shortly.

            “Another 30 minutes yet until daylight, do you think?” a cheerful voice commented.

            I looked at the woman next to me. She had curly orange hair and wore a bright blue ski jacket. She took up the middle seat as well as part of my seat and the lady’s next to her. I answered,

            “That sounds right. Too bad we won’t get to see it rise over the ocean.”

            The woman smiled. I’d given her the go-ahead. I crafted my response to be friendly enough that she would know I’d hold a casual conversation with her. I was tired, and needed something to wake me up before we arrived. She said,

            “I’m headed to house-sit for a friend for a couple of weeks. She went to Italy. You should see her place though. I don’t know why anyone would ever leave it. It’s a darling house. Colonial style. White, with black trimmings and shutters. Right now there will be icicles, lights, candles in the window.” She rested her head back as if envisioning it. “She has cats too. Boy do I love cats.”

            I was content listening to her talk. Though I wasn’t necessarily interested in her story, it did take my mind off of my churning stomach. I couldn’t tell if it was nerves in anticipation of the days interviews, or the general lack of guidance I felt from the world. Then a memory of the smell of the pheasants from last night entered my body and I cringed a little. The orange haired woman noticed.

            “Are you feeling okay honey?”

            “Yes,” I said. “I guess I’m just a little tired still.”

            She put her hand on my knee. “You just feel free to come stay with me if you’d like. You know, after you’re done your interviews. You’ll love the house. Are you allergic to cats?”

I was touched by the generosity of this stranger. “Thank you” I managed to say. Before I could respond about the cats, the car began to swerve. The highway was well sanded, but I thought we must have hit some black ice anyways. We jerked to the right, then the left. I looked out the window. Other cars began to honk, slow down, or stop all together. After several slow seconds I realized the van wasn’t going to regain its trajectory. We were going to crash.

The moments passed clearly. The van flipped once then rolled a little further and landed on its side. I slammed into the window. The orange haired woman landed on top of me. I didn’t feel any pain at first. I was stunned. I saw shattered glass around me. I saw blood. Then the groans and screams started. I heard my own voice making the same sounds involuntarily. “Get off of me!” I managed to scream.

            The orange haired woman groaned then managed to stand up somehow. The woman on the other side of her grabbed onto the hands that were reaching through the opposite window and she climbed out. I was disoriented. I tried to stand but couldn’t. The first feeling of panic hit me. I was stuck. My back felt like it had snapped. The crash had taken me apart less methodically than I had done to the pheasants the night before. I couldn’t believe that was less than 12 hours ago. I looked to my right. A man was sitting in a similar position to me, crumpled next to the window in front of mine. He looked like someone relaxing in the heat of a sauna, blood instead of sweat trickling down his face. The orange haired woman grabbed my body and pulled me up with a determined strength. At the door a man was waiting. He carried me out and laid me on the ground.

            At some point as the screams and sirens swirled, the sun rose. I watched the orange and pink rays stream through the trees. A halo of light momentarily appeared over the woman who was asking me questions about my age, what I had done that morning, where I was from, where I was headed. She too was a stranger, yet had taken it upon her as a duty to keep me conscious. As the paramedics climbed out of the ambulance and began putting people on stretchers I continued to notice the calm light as it illuminated different rocks, plants, people. Just as people were there to watch over me and the others, something else was watching over us all.  

            When the paramedic leaned over me and asked my name and age, and what hurt I returned to the pain in my back. I moaned and explained through short breaths everything that hurt. I took comfort that I hadn’t lost any of my teeth, and that I could wiggle my toes—I wouldn’t lose my movement forever. I screamed louder when they put me onto the stretcher and carried me into the ambulance. Once inside the vehicle I felt the first tears fall from my eyes, and wash down my face. Amidst the unknown, the pain, the noise, the struggle of it all, I was suddenly deeply grateful. The day’s plans were rendered trivial. So were life’s. I was alive. A bird flew by the window of the ambulance, and the tears continued to gently fall.

             

La Choza

 The shack had no windows, but the moonlight spilled through a crack in the ceiling. The woman’s thoughts floated with the dust on the white rays streaming through the dark room. She lay on her back, more awake than she ever was during the day. The man had visited her dreams again. She tried to make sense of his words, “your baby is dead inside you.”

For months she had allowed herself to believe her slight frame was to blame for her lack of growth. Secretly she envied the short, fat women with the round bellies. She looked at her husband who lay next to her on the cot. His body raised and lowered gently with each breath. A surge of hatred and shame washed over her. She couldn’t even give breath to her own child – dense and lifeless within her. Strained thoughts couldn’t force her heartbeat into the child’s. The rhythm of the cicadas outside set pace with her own heartbeat.

She slid from her bed and stood atop a bucket in the corner of the room. Dios mio. God too stood on high ground and looked down on his Kingdom. The moonlight touched la Virgen Maria shrine, which glowed in the room’s corner. The life of a mother was one of interruptions. God gave and God took away. She tied her hair back and stepped down. 

The plant sat on the table. She picked the leaves slowly and set them to boil in her pot. She would brew the tea until morning, and drink, cleansing her. The density would leave her body and bring lightness once again.

As the moon’s white beams turned gold with the sun’s rays, she sipped her concoction before folding herself back into her bed. Her husband yawned awake. Time to start another day in her kingdom.

Water-Walkers

Everyone enters this world with a gift. My grandmother's was to find water. She carried a tin cup that hung from a leather strap around her neck or waist. She was always filling it. "Kwens," she would tell me, "imagine what the world would be like if every woman prayed for the water; if every giver of life cared for what allows them to give life." For years I’ve been trying to imagine that, and occasionally I can see the purity, health and beauty.

Years ago, probably in the '70s, my grandmother began to warn that one day in the near future water would be sold in bottles for money. People heard her, but no one really listened. It has since happened. Now, forty years later, as she rocks in her chair and looks out the window she says, "in another forty years clean water will be the most expensive commodity on the face of this earth. It will be the oil of the future—political, contested and dark."

Sometimes it scares me to know my grandmother. Each of her stories settle in my bones and fills me with responsibility. "Kwens, my girl, when the water is sick, we are sick." Early one autumn morning, with that in my mind, I began to walk.

Silence. Some say it’s an unspeakable word, that its powerlessness. As I walked along the river, I heard her. Sometimes silence is not quiet, but rather a sound of separation from the world. People think something is quiet, powerless, but in reality it’s raging with noise that no one understands. So they ignore. That's how it is with the Mississippi, the Misiziibi—the long river. This sacred river flows thousands of kilometers. Without this river famine would spread throughout the mid-western part of North America. Hundreds of thousands would die. What is a river? An innumerable amount of water droplets, insignificant on their own, but a powerful life-supporting ecosystem together. The problem is some people look at the river and see only money or fame. They notice the merchant ships that flaunt and float its path. The tar sands boil in their blood. 

That morning I walked for many kilometers. As I rounded the river bend by the hunting grounds, I took a deep breath. I saw their fortress. Around 100 beaver damns spanned the river. I stood perfectly still as the shiny brown bodies dove and emerged with more sticks to pile into homes. All day long I watched them. As night fell, I scattered a small pinch of tobacco in the water. I turned to walk home with images of my new friends swimming through my mind. I had learned much from them.

 “I began to see those beavers in the 1970s” my grandma told me. I had poured myself a cup of calamint tea that I had gathered from the prairie when I arrived home, well after dark. I thought she would be excited to hear what I had observed. She was, and responded to me with equal enthusiasm. “The first day I went to that very spot Kwens, the one with the beavers, was forty years ago. As I watched them swim I was on my knees. At first I was so happy, they were hardworking but playful. Then I felt sorrow. I saw the water change and the beavers slow down. Their homes became smaller and sparser. Murky rainbow swirls and thick layers of scum permeated the waters. I saw thirst. It is a terrible sight, thirst. Its like seeing death itself.” I remembered hearing grandma’s story before about how she came to know the water would be bottled. It didn’t dawn on me that I had just visited that very spot. But I had. She continued,

“I kept going to visit those beavers after that dream. During that decade, the oil companies began exploiting the tar sands. It was slow at first. They would only dig so much. I noticed as the digging by the men increased, the beavers began increased their efforts as well. Today, it’s the largest damn in North America. Eh, Kwens. Did you see how many damns are there? It’s breath taking. They have truly built a fortress. The beavers knew that the waters needed protection, so they are working hard. Everything to their west is pure and clean. Everything to the east is dirty and will make you sick. The beavers can’t do it alone.”

Have you prayed for the water today? What are your rights to drink her, and obligations to keep her clean? Every sip is a dream and prayer for an earth made clean again.