The Melting Queen

by Bruce Cinnamon

  NeWest Press wishes to acknowledge that the land on which we operate is Treaty 6 territory and a traditional meeting ground and home for many Indigenous Peoples, including Cree, Saulteaux, Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Métis, and Nakota Sioux.

  Copyright © Bruce Cinnamon 2019

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication — reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system — without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of copyright law. In the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying of the material, a licence must be obtained from Access Copyright before proceeding.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Cinnamon, Bruce, 1991-, author

  The melting queen / Bruce Cinnamon.

  (Nunatak first fiction series ; no. 48)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-988732-50-3 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-988732-51-0 (EPUB).--ISBN 978-1-988732-52-7 (Kindle)

  I. Title. II. Series: Nunatak first fiction ; no. 48

  PS8605.I56M46 2019 C813'.6 C2018-904440-3

  C2018-904441-1

  Board Editor: Thomas Wharton

  Cover and interior design: Michel Vrana

  Cover images: istockphoto.com

  Author photo: Joanna Włodarczyk

  NeWest Press acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Edmonton Arts Council for support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.

  NeWest Press

  #201, 8540-109 Street

  Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1E6

  www.newestpress.com

  No bison were harmed in the making of this book.

  Printed and bound in Canada

  1 2 3 4 20 19 18

  To Edmonton—a city I have loved, hated, left, and returned to many times.

  Table of contents

  1. After a long winter

  2. Far from the world, here at this bend in the river

  3. The first day of spring

  4. As sundown claims the melting city

  5. The Melting Queen shall Name a successor

  6. Endowed with a marvellous vision

  7. Nothing in Heaven or Earth shall prevent it

  8. A lush oasis in a desert of ice and snow

  9. A flourishing throne in full bloom

  10. A gathering of worthy petitioners

  11. Resurrected by the rains

  12. The Melting Queen shall brook no rival

  13. Howling winds lay waste to a thriving city

  14. The beating heart of her proud city

  15. Her time has come and gone

  16. A shattered river

  17. That glorious day

  18. Let history forget her name

  19. The fiery sun of summer returns, to free us from our winter prison

  20. A city unlike any other

  Appendix 1 – List of Melting Queens

  Appendix 2 – The Melting Day Proclamation

  Acknowledgements

  The ice has broken. The river runs on again. Winter is over.

  —Old Melting Day haiku

  {1}

  After a long winter

  I go to the river every day to see if it’s finally free.

  Before the sun rises—before daylight comes to illuminate a miserable world, before dawn chases away the endless possibilities of night—I shuffle out onto the barren streets of this godforsaken city.

  Edmonton. A prairie town, crushed flat by huge, heavy skies. A northern outpost, encased in ice for months on end. Its houses huddle together against the cold wind, which digs its claws under doors and around window frames. Its roads are lined with mountain ranges of dirt-encrusted snow, painted orange by weak sodium streetlights. Its people sleep, dreaming of summer. Dreaming of somewhere far away.

  I dream of green grass and running water as I walk to the river. My boots crunch on the salt-stained sidewalks. The dry air scratches at my skin, flaying my nostrils for daring to inhale, trying to force me back to bed. But I bow my head against the winds and soldier on, driven by the tiniest ember of hope.

  When I reach the stairs that lead down into the river valley, I close my eyes and look out at the landscape. I let my desperate dreams flare up, projecting my desires onto the world. I imagine myself looking out on a shattered river, freed from its icy prison. I say a prayer to all the ancient gods of the earth and the river:

  Please. Let it be today. Let the ice break. Let winter end.

  But every day for the past six months I’ve been disappointed. The world defies my dreams. I stand on the top step and open my eyes and see a solid ribbon of dead white ice. The river is held captive, its waters locked in place. The skeletal trees along its banks stretch their brittle branches toward the sky. Tufts of blanched grass poke up through heaped snowbanks. The whole river valley—emerald green in summer, golden yellow in fall, blossoming pink in spring—is trapped in grey stasis.

  I swallow my disappointment and start down the stairs, to search the ice for signs of fracture.

  Edmonton is a typical grid city. It sprawls out over the flat, wheat-stubbled prairie like a smashed egg oozing across a crumb-covered kitchen floor. Its perfect, rectangular blocks are completely interchangeable. They stretch to the horizon like the world’s easiest and most boring jigsaw puzzle. Apartments and restaurants and office blocks. Schools and houses and strip malls. Every part of this city looks the same: short, squat, and square.

  But the river valley is different. The river rips this city in two. It carves a winding path through the heart of Edmonton, pulling the paved-over prairie down into a deep crevasse. The orderly grid of streets unravels into nonsensical curves. The structured metropolis gives way to a wild urban forest. Two dozen bridges stretch across the river, pulling the two halves of the city together like stitches trying in vain to close a wound.

  I’ve walked across each of them, inspecting the ice from above. I hunt for some hint of a crack, some hope of an imminent collapse. But the ice is flawless, pristine, spread from shore to shore like a starched white sheet. It’s just as strong today as it was yesterday, and it was just as strong yesterday as the day before that. And the day before that. And the day before that.

  It’s been six months since the First Snow fell. Six months since that grim fall day when frosty lily pads started to clog the river. The longest winter in living memory. It should’ve been spring weeks ago, but still the ice locks the river in place. It’s the middle of May, and there are still no signs of summer.

  After a while, my inspection of the ice becomes too depressing. The sun comes up, my dreams of spring evaporate in the pale white light, and I start to believe that the river will never be free. Winter will last forever.

  I stand on the High Level Bridge, stare down at the thick white ice, and wonder what it would take to break it. Would an object, falling from a great enough height, have enough force to shatter the river and free us all from the tyranny of winter? I’ve flirted with the idea—hauling a bunch of rocks up to the bridge deck and throwing them down with all my strength. Or dragging one of the historical cannons from the Legislature grounds and tipping it over the railing. Or just taking a tiny step forward... “Adam?”

  A familiar voice rips my reveries apart. An icicle of fear and dread and panic slams into my gut, slides up under my ribs, bursts both my lungs. I turn to face him breathlessly, with the wind knocked out of me. I’ve been asleep for too long, I know. But this is not how I wanted to wake up.

  “Oh my god. Oh my god, Adam.”

  The look on Brock Stark’s face is more honest than any mirror ever c
ould be. I can see in an instant what I’ve become, and I feel the icicle of panic vaporize into red-hot, burning shame.

  “What happened to you?” asks Brock. “Where have you been all winter?”

  He steps towards me. We’re the exact same height, but that’s where our resemblance ends. Everyone used to joke that Brock and I were twins—or at least we would’ve been, if not for my bright red hair. His hair is more gold than blond. His jaw could cut diamonds. If he flexed he would probably rip his coat apart at the seams. He looks like a Greek statue, but his flawless white skin glows with a bronze radiance even now, after all these months of winter.

  From the moment we met pledging Delta Chi Upsilon in first year, we were a pair. Brock and Adam. Adam and Brock. Like salt and pepper: never one without the other. My best friend. My mirror-image. But not anymore.

  His model-quality green eyes are wide pools of emotion. I see a whole synchronized swim team of feelings splashing around in them.

  “Adam. Say something! What’s wrong?”

  I have lockjaw. I have no idea what to say. I have no way to explain away the past six months. I couldn’t explain it then and I can’t explain it now. I just had to leave. It was easier to just make a clean break with everything and everyone. Even him.

  “Oh, hi Brock,” I manage to croak out. It’s hard to remember, but I think it’s the first words I’ve spoken in six months. “I’ve just been, you know, around. Long winter, huh?”

  He stares at me, mouth agape.

  “Long winter? Are you kidding me? Where were you? You just disappeared. I tried to call you. I tried to find you. We all thought you’d left town or something.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean for you to worry.”

  I owe him more than this. But there’s nothing to be said. That life is over now.

  He just stares at me with those wide, horrified eyes, taking in my sunken face, my exhausted eyes, my tangled hair, tumbling halfway down my back. I know I could never explain what I felt in a way that would satisfy him. I can barely explain it to myself.

  Seeing him right in front of me, with his bulging muscles and his close-cropped hair, it’s hard to believe that I looked just like him once. I used to be everything that a man is supposed to be. But now this body—once so virile and vigorous, once so strong and solid—is a husk of its former splendour. All I do is sleep, and check the river, and fantasize about spring. I’ve been surviving on saltines and peach yoghurt for six months. I haven’t been to the gym since I stopped going to campus in the fall. I’ve become addicted to walking—up and down the river valley, back and forth across bridges—and every step erodes my body further. I’m wasting away, dissolving a little more each day. My life with Brock feels like a distant memory now.

  “Tell me what happened,” he says. His voice is thick and rich, like a knifeful of butter on a big slab of toast. “Tell me everything.”

  “Things changed. I changed. That’s all.”

  “Why didn’t you answer my texts or calls? Why did you disappear off Facebook and Instagram and everywhere?”

  “I threw my phone away. I deleted everything, all my profiles.”

  “Why?”

  “I just couldn’t have them anymore. They were wrong. They were all lies. They weren’t me.”

  I turn my face away from his. I don’t want to see myself reflected in his eyes. I don’t want to hear my own weak explanations

  “You shouldn’t’ve cut me out like that,” he says. “I’m your brother.”

  It took Brock a year to come out to me, and another year before he was brave enough to tell all the other Delta Chi Upsilon brothers. But he wasn’t the first gay Dixie and he won’t be the last. I can’t stand there like he did and say, “I like guys, but I’m still one of the guys. I’m still your brother.” I’m not some frat brother anymore. I don’t know what I am, but I know I’m not that.

  I look past him, to the end of the bridge, then force myself to meet his eyes.

  “I can’t be a brother, Brock. I’m not Adam Truman anymore.”

  He shakes his head.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Never mind. It means nothing. I have to go.”

  “Adam—”

  “No. Not Adam. Not anymore. Forget about him. Forget about Adam and Brock. Forget about Delta Chi Upsilon. Forget about the past four years. Please. Please just forget that I ever existed, okay?”

  His jaw sets in that stubborn, familiar way.

  “Never,” he says. “No matter what. You’re still my best friend. You’re still my brother. And clearly you need me right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I have to go.”

  He makes no move to stop me as I walk past, but he calls out after me.

  “We’re not done yet, Adam! I’ll find you!”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble under my breath as I walk away.

  I go off the south end of the bridge, up the hill, past the Garneau Theatre and Antidote Café. My heart thunders in my chest. I know he’s not following me, but I can still hear his voice ringing in my ears. I walk down 109th Street, turn onto Whyte Avenue, weave through the afternoon crowds. I feel my cheeks burning, hot and red against the cold winter air. I wish he hadn’t seen me this way. I wish he could’ve just remembered the good times we had and left it at that.

  I have to get out of this city. I’ve known it for a long time, deep down, but my fantasies of spring have made me too complacent. I’ve been wasting time here, walking in circles. I should’ve gone the moment the First Snow fell. If I stay I’ll just run into more Brock Starks, more ghosts from my past life. No more walking. No more waiting for the river to break. It’s time to go.

  I grit my teeth and take a confident step forward, finally resolved. And then my bootlaces explode.

  It’s a coordinated effort, like two samurai lovers committing seppuku side by side. My laces spill out over my toes, unravelling like steaming intestines, and I go crashing to the pavement.

  I force myself to get right back up, tripping over the carcasses of my boots, ignoring the bug-eyed stares of the strangers around me. I push past the couple who are asking if I’m okay, ignore the stinging in my knee, open a door and stumble into the nearest shop. A bell tinkles above me. Heat washes across my face and my pores sigh in relief.

  “We’re closed.”

  An enormous woman with a bad slouch sits behind a messy desk. She wears a fuzzy green cardigan which makes her look like a moss-covered boulder. Her black hair is cut short and shot through with wiry bristles of grey and white. Her skin is brown and speckled, as are her eyes. There are dark, puffy circles under them, but they stare out at me with sharp focus. She looks like a big brown bear who’s just woken up from hibernation—still sleepy, but she might spring into action if provoked.

  The big bear woman dominates the space so much that I barely noticed her surroundings at first, but now reality seeps back in. Worn, stained carpet. Cardboard boxes stacked throughout the room. Faded posters on the walls: the Sydney Opera House, the Pyramids, Machu Picchu.

  It’s a travel agency. Of course it is.

  “I’d like to book a trip,” I announce.

  “I told you, we’re closed,” she says. “As in: Closed Forever. Going out of business. There’s a sign.”

  She gestures and I look over my shoulder at the bare glass on the door.

  “Oh. I guess I forgot to put it up,” she says. She grabs a piece of paper and starts writing out a sign. My sudden burst of energy is just as suddenly snuffed out.

  The travel agent walks around me and affixes the sign to the door. She returns to her desk, picks up a stack of brochures, and throws them into a swollen blue recycling bag. I notice a huge pile of bags filled with shredded paper in the back corner of the shop, under a sagging Stonehenge poster.

  “You don’t have any last-minute deals?”

  “That was last month,” she says. She continues emptying out her desk for a moment then loo
ks up at me.

  “Why are you still here?”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  I turn to leave and the husks of my boots trip me up. I stumble into a rack of postcards and it crashes over beside me. The travel agent just watches me flail as I struggle to keep my balance.

  “I’m sorry!”

  She swats my apology away.

  “Whatever. I’m gonna throw all that shit out anyways.”

  “All these postcards? Why? They’re beautiful.”

  The travel agent gives me a look that’s either disgust or pity or a mix of both. I blush and stare down at the mangled remains of my boots.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll go now. Just, do you have any tape I can borrow?”

  The travel agent folds her arms across her chest. I feel her really looking at me now—her gaze scratches across my surfaces, prying at the grey layers that I’ve cocooned around myself as insulation. She’s noticing how thin I am, how translucent my skin has become. The long red hair spilling out from under my toque. She’s frowning now, probably wondering what the deal is with this guy. Looking up and down my body, imagining what she would see if she peeled away my bulky winter coat.

  “Never mind,” I mumble. I turn away and shuffle toward the door. I’ll walk home in my socks.

  “Wait,” sighs the travel agent as I reach the exit. “I have tape. Just give me a second.”

  She lumbers away, into the back of the shop. I wait a moment, then shuffle over to one of the chairs in front of her desk. It coughs out a little plume of dust when I sit down.

  As I wait for her to return, I look at all her dated, faded travel posters. All winter, as I’ve been walking back and forth across bridges, I’ve been dreaming of the new person I’ll become when the ice breaks. I’ve dreamed that the ruins of my past life will crumble away, and a glorious new me will rise from the rubble. Sometimes I close my eyes as I walk, and imagine this shining new self in a more lustrous city. In my mind’s eye, Edmonton’s drab streets are transformed around me into the sun-soaked alleyways of Paris, the neon-drenched avenues of Tokyo, the fluorescence-flooded streets of New York City.