by Tanya Tagaq
Under those pieces of plywood is shelter from the wind for a myriad of species. The plywood becomes home in the vast treelessness. The wood becomes a dark sanctuary safe from all the predators. We find creatures underneath the plywood, from beetles and baby birds to lemmings. The lemmings are my favourite. They get so startled as I rip off the ceiling from their safety, blindly running to find escape from this monster that has changed their world.
After chasing and capturing them I hold each one in my cupped hands, singing to it until its heartbeat returns to normal cadence. I put them in my pockets. Don’t put more than one in each pocket or they will start fighting. Not many creatures are good in overpopulated spaces. I have about six pockets in my windbreaker. Six lemmings a day keeps the doctor away.
Whistling my way home and brimming with anticipation for my daily ritual; I have only five lemmings today. There is a small back porch in our house. Since nobody ever uses the back door, the porch is my domain. It’s a good place to hide things, a good place to pretend the rest of the world is mine. Stopping at the fridge to pick out a few carrots and some celery, I then lay the lemmings out on the floor of the bare porch. The carrots belong in the corner. The animals are afraid at first, but cannot resist the smorgasbord of food. I leave them happily munching and starting to relax.
We have a fish tank in our living room. There are newts, snails, and fish in there. The snails procreate too quickly for the health of the tank, so my ritual begins by killing off a minimum of ten snails by simply squishing their little bodies against the glass, shells and all. It is very satisfying to me to hear their shells popping, like when you find a particularly dirty part on the rug while you are vacuuming, and it all clinks up the tube in a hollow symphony.
Part two of my ritual is to take one of the newts by the tail and put it into my mouth. It sits there on my tongue, the little suction cups on its toes grasping my taste buds. I close my mouth. It crawls around in confusion for a minute, and then finds comfort in the heat and darkness. It squirms its way under my tongue, and usually falls asleep there. I do some chores as it rests, opening my mouth to let some fresh air in. I go and look into the bathroom mirror. The newt is almost always sleeping, its cute little eyes closed and restful, using my tongue as a huge duvet. I find it adorable. I return him to the tank, and go to find my furry friends.
The lemmings are fed and full. I lie down in the small porch. I can fit lengthwise in the porch if my knees are bent. I fan out my long hair on the floor and wait. I lie still. The lemmings calm, and begin to stir. They find my hair. This awakens their burrowing instinct. They make their way to my scalp, seeking safety. The smallest of paws massaging my head at lightning speed. They never leave the safety of my hair. They keep going for about ten minutes before they get weary of attempting to dig. It’s the best ten minutes of my day. It’s still the best massage I have ever gotten. Once they tire, I put them back into my pockets and return them to where I found them. I have to get them out before my parents come home. The lemmings are full of carrots and happy. I will come back tomorrow. My mother once found one small piece of lemming poop in my hair. She laughed so hard and wondered how it got in there. I told her I was lying down on the tundra. I have kept this small ritual to myself until now.
“Just let me get it wet” he said
What does he mean?
It’s not wet down there
I didn’t even have hair yet
I lie wooden
Saying no
He keeps trying
Pushing his hard thing
Into a space that has no space
It’s dry
The heaving desperation on his breath
The sour fear on mine
Finally someone comes to the door
And he jumps off me
Pretending like nothing happened
NINE MILE LAKE
My little cousin, you were only seven years old. I was eleven, the big girl. We pilfered money from our parents and went to the store. The Resolute Bay Co-op always had a particular smell. It smelled dry, a little like mildew and a lot like dust. The aisles seemed so long to our small bodies. After intense negotiation of what to buy, we left with two giant plastic bags of junk food. Cokes, M&M’s, salt and vinegar potato chips, the weird pink popcorn with an elephant on the package, Popeye cigarettes, and even a few real cigarettes.
We lit the cigarettes behind the old A-frame house near the playground, hoping that our mothers would not see us. We had already been caught smoking under the porch while eating a bottle of Flintstones vitamins earlier that summer. Nobody was happy with us on that day. I was aware of being the bad influence, but I could never keep you from following me from place to place. Sometimes I would trick you and run away, and then feel bad and come back, your little tearstained face making me feel like I had no soul. I never let you tag along while hanging out with the big boys, because we were always up to no good. You were too small for all of that chaos. I did my best to protect you. I still do.
It was getting late, but it didn’t matter. The twenty-four-hour sun was blazing high in the sky, and the cold wind kept us alert. Three months of bright light meant that there was no curfew, no time constraints. We wanted an adventure, which usually meant a hike out of town. There were a few interesting places we could go on our trek, considering the vastness of the tundra. The river was relatively close, where we would balance a two-by-four between the jagged rocks of the rapids and cross, praying our makeshift bridge would not falter. We could go to the beach. The shore was ripe with seaweed and their treasures. Remember that time we found a sea snake, its bloated corpse so cold and lonely? The playground was all right, but inevitably one particular gas-sniffing jerk would come along and pester us. Best to get out of town.
We marched out on our own, feeling like big girls, teenaged girls. You trailed behind on your tiny legs. We headed for Signal Hill. Making it to the transmission tower was good, but I wanted the cliffs. It was a steep climb and our breath was heavy when we reached the top. We ate half of our food as we sat on the summit, our feet dangling over the precipice as we kept our eye out for polar bears. My uncle used to slide down this hill in the winter. I remember thinking that he was the coolest, and hoped I would be brave enough take risks like him when I grew up.
We decided to try to make it to Nine Mile Lake. It seemed like just a few kilometres from the top of the hill. This is when I learned that on the tundra, everything is much farther than it seems. The treeless expanse lends itself to illusion. We could handle it. The most daunting task was passing the seagulls’ nests. There was no going around them; we had to run through their nesting zone. Courage does not come easily, and we run as quickly as possible, your little hand in mine.
Seagulls scream and dive when you get near their nests. I held my fist up into the sky and waved it as we ran, so they would go for the highest point of contact. I could feel their beaks pecking through my thin glove. We ran as quickly as we could, even losing a few bags of chips from our precious rations. We were red-faced and laughing once we made it through. I will never forget your sweet little face that day, proud and exhilarated with our accomplishment. I carried your heart in mine. I still do.
The tundra is sparse, rocky, no trees and hardly any dirt. The lichen takes hundreds of years to grow. They grow and die and eventually collect to make up the soil. We were surrounded by shale rock, dry and sharp under the feet. The clean and hollow crackle of walking on shale is still one of my favourite sounds.
We lifted a piece of plywood and found a snow bunting’s nest under it. Three bald baby birds screamed at us. They were so small, newly hatched. The veins under their stillclosed eyelids were purple and throbbing, their necks barely strong enough to hold up their heads. Shrill cries filled the air, and a panic arose. We wanted to make them happy! Were they hungry? We opened up the elephant popcorn. We fed the little mouths. In horror, we watched as each one of them choked on the popcorn and died. We could see the kernels through their littl
e transparent throats. There was nothing we could do. The mother came back from her insect hunt and made us cry even harder. We left in defeat, feeling like demons and hoping neither of us would speak of it again. I made the biggest mistakes with you. I still do.
Finally arriving at Nine Mile Lake, we were thankful that the wind had died down a bit. We were relieved because polar bears can’t smell you as easily. The water was vast and clean. Thirst is easily quenched by fresh Arctic water. Around the periphery of the lake, there were small pools that held baby trout. I trapped one and put it in my mouth. I let it swim down my esophagus; its tail tickled all the way down to my tummy. It was delightful. The flesh was so fresh. Something awoke in me, an old memory; an ancient memory, of eating live flesh. It is a true joining of flesh to flesh. My spine straightened. When flesh is eaten live, you glean the spirit with the energy. That is why wild predators are so strong. The farther away you get from the time of death, the less energy meat carries. We pretended to be seagulls, not even chewing the fish and feeling them swim down our throats. We gorged ourselves on them. The energy of the fish’s life was readily absorbed into my body, and its death throes became a shining and swimming beacon into the sky. If we acted like seagulls, then perhaps we could transform into them, screaming and soaring. We would fly home.
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF PITY
Look at other humans with pity.
Why are they so downtrodden?
What could possibly have happened to them?
What could possibly have happened to you?
They may see the consumer sickness
They may see the pride sickness
They may see the detachment sickness
Your belongings won’t save you
Money won’t save you, even if you save it
Money has spent us, as we have spent it
We look upon the scarred earth with pity
What have we done to her?
Isn’t it she who has given her minerals
And electricity
To spit us out,
Give us life?
Only to suck us back in
Just so she can breathe with the seasons?
Just so we can be her topsoil?
Perhaps she looks upon us not with the love of a mother
But with the same indifference we lend to our lungs
With the same indifference
That we give the homeless human
THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED
Only children rule this house. On a cold summer night we gather. There is tinfoil on the windows to keep the sun out, socks stuffed into the hole where the doorknob should be to prevent the smaller kids from spying on us. We are in a safe house, where nobody is drinking. No adults, our rules.
There are six or seven of us, just hanging out with our imaginations and our ideals. Everything is so simple. We live second by second. I am eleven. Some kids start playing tag, running and screeching with joy. Three of us are sitting on the bare mattress, backs against the wall and our backs to the world. A Blondie cassette tape is playing over and over. The older kids boss the younger ones around, teasingly telling them to respect their elders. We spin the bottles and hide the seek. We have lip-syncing competitions and raid the kitchen shelves. We get peanut butter in our hair and bark laughter over nothing. We have been awake for so long that sweet humorous delirium has set in. Someone farts and we all laugh for fifteen minutes straight. Someone shoots Kool-Aid out of his nose in a fit of hilarity and a huge booger came along with it and we laugh so hard and long that it hurt.
I feel something enter the room, coming in from the top right corner. I cannot see it but I know it’s there, plain as day. My real self recognizes the feeling, recognizes the place this being came from, where it lives. There are other realities that exist besides our own; it is foolish to think otherwise. The universe is conscious. This thing comes from the layers of energy beyond our physical perception. The place we go to after we die, the place we were before being conceived. These places hold us for millennia in Universe Time. We are on Earth and in flesh for only a moment. Before we are born, energy must be woven into spirit and then siphoned into a body. After we die the spirit must be consoled after the trauma of flesh and then unravelled back into energy. It feels good to remember this place, but the thing that has arrived here is not good.
It is terrifying to feel this being so clearly. If it were a sound, it would be a quiet one that got louder until it is the only thing that you can think about. Warning crawls all over me. This thing grows and reveals its intent. This thing is not done with the flesh; it wants to get inside mine. It feels like a squirming, penetrating, living giant, pushing and crushing at the boundaries of my skin. It’s looking for cracks, holes, pores, any way into the flesh. I’m curious and wonder what would happen if I let it in. I wonder what the process of letting it in would be. I am not afraid, only curious. I don’t feel like prey. I too am a predator.
Time is standing still; there are minutes between each clock tick. I realize that not everyone can feel the being, because nobody else is agitated. My cousin’s eyes meet mine in the slow stop time. She can feel it too! She is sitting cross-legged on the mattress, facing me. We both instinctively know what to do. Where did the knowledge come from? No one has taught us how to do this, but the ritual is old and living in our bones. Just as giving birth is involuntary, we fall into rank to facilitate a process we don’t comprehend yet. She bends over and rests her head on my lap, and I feel a click in the unphysical place, like two puzzle pieces snapping together. She pushes her energy into mine, and we become one being Ourselves. She is the intent that moves the hand. I am the door. She is a battery, she provides the torque; I am the beacon, calling and igniting the energy that creates the path to crack this reality. There is a great snap, like a spine breaking.
It’s the strangest sensation being in this New Place. I can hear everything, but it is muffled, as if I am hearing it through a small tube filled with cotton batting. Everything around me is devoid of light and I am weightless. There is freedom and relief from conscious troubles. I am not in my body. Time has changed into a light and benign thing, because it is no longer ripping through my physical form. It is Time that eats us and drives us back into the earth. Without a body, things like Time and Gravity have no power.
After what seemed like an eternity of easing into and spreading myself out in this New Place, I sense slight movement to the right of me. It’s a small stirring movement about three feet away. There are two bright almond-shaped holes floating at what would have been my eye level. Light is coming out of them like how a television glows in a dark room. I can see children running around the room my body was in through those almond-shaped holes; I can see the threadbare blankets on the mattress. I can see the reality of my body. Those are my body’s eyes I am looking through.
The realization doesn’t startle me, because the comfort of being outside of Body is our true state of existence. The calmness turns into slow dread as I feel the presence of the being that entered the room earlier. I can see what this thing is, now that I have left my body.
It is very sharp, gnarled, masculine, canine, long-toothed and rotted. It was a human once. It is huge and sinuous, a jumble of muscle and gristle. It has no skin in most places, and was blinded by cataracts and hatred. I could sense he had died in a terrible way, possibly more than once. He has honed the echo of the burden of revenge. He is murderous. I feel him, and he is bitter. He wants to come back to physical form because something terrible needs to be avenged. I know it is because of an act of evil that he died. He is lightning quick and slobbering. One of the children in the room is related to someone he wants to wreak revenge upon. He wants to kill the child, and anyone else he can. The killing will give him skin, sight, honour, and release some of the hatred. It will heal his family’s DNA; it will bring good fortune to his living brethren. It will restore balance. Murder can heal if applied sparingly. Murder can feed us. Life murders us every day.
&n
bsp; The being is now up in the left-hand corner of the room, and then suddenly it is rushing towards me, towards the light. It’s fast, so fast I can hardly see it. He is rushing towards the eyeholes. He must place his own consciousness onto my body’s eyeholes to claim my flesh. Once he presses his face onto my body’s eyes, they will be his. I know if he manages to claim my eyes, my whole body will be his. He is directly beside my spirit self now, rushing towards my flesh, his new reality just a moment away. I can’t believe his power, his clear beauty, and his hatred. It is the sharpest thing I have ever sensed.
At the very last second I awaken out of the trance and use all of my will to push him away and jump into my own field of vision. Moving him was like shoving a wet, seething mountain. It burns to make contact with him. It took my last reserve of mental and spiritual strength to push him away. I place my eyes onto the eyeholes for the Bonding. It feels like blue light is being poured onto my face, and Body feels like a million pounds of dark matter. I can feel Time again, and it feels like death. It’s excruciating. As spirit fastens itself totally back into flesh, there is another great snapping sound, and an electrical current goes through me.
The only physical sign of this is a slight twitch in my arms. All of the kids in the room scream in horror when I move. It must have been an unnatural movement because the boy beside me hides behind a pillow and starts to cry. A few more children run out of the room. Even though there had been no previous indication that anything was amiss, the children instinctively know to flee. I’m in a deep daze. My cousin looks up at me as if in a dream, and we both break out in wicked grins. She was with me that whole time. She saw. It was nice to harness the fear.
