Split Tooth

by Tanya Tagaq

  A small sliver of green light begins to pulsate in the sky. Cold bites my face, numbing it after a quick stab of pain. Frostbite. Exhalations are collecting in a thick coating of ice on my scarf but I like it. Northern Lights are always worth the cold. Legend says that if you whistle or scream at them, they will come down and cut off your head. This is ridiculous, but I admit to running home quickly a when the whole horizon is full of light and the movement of the roaring green thunder shakes my vertebrae like dice. Maybe some sound will coax the Northern Lights out of the sky? Sound can only help beckon them.

  Arqsarniq. I sing for you. Humming shakily at first, thin tendrils of sound. The trepidation dissolves and a throbbing vibratory expulsion of sound emerges. Thicker, richer, heavier. Sound is its own currency. Sound is a conduit to a realm we cannot totally comprehend. The power of sound conducts our thoughts into emotions that then manifest in action.

  Sound can heal.

  Sound can kill.

  Sound is malleable. Sound can be a spear or a needle. Sound can create the wound and then stitch it. Sound can cauterize and materialize. No one can hear my song but the Northern Lights.

  My body grows warmer and I can feel columns of clarity being paved from core to skin. The swirling columns leave my body and grow high into the sky and deep into the water. I am a pillar, gorging on the dimensions we sense but never see. The Northern Lights grow larger, a sliver morphing into a great curtain of movement that pulsates from east to west, parallel to my form on the ice. The lights become bolder and grow closer. They seem curious, drawn by the sound of flesh and my meagre offering of spirit. My ears plug and pop with pressure and the warmth in my core starts to turn into heat. The lights begin to blur and I swear they are calling me backwards/forwards in Time, back to a time before I was born and where I will return to after I die.

  The lights join my song with a sound of their own: a high-pitched ringing mixed with the crackling snap of electricity. I can feel it on my skin and in my belly. A dog howls, and I can also hear someone weeping in agony a long ways away, but a long time ago.

  The Northern Lights grow larger still and begin to morph into faces, blurry, omnipotent, healing and death-dealing. They sharpen and I see Aunties and Great-grandmothers. I see Ancestors and future children; the young ones are just developing and preparing their spirits for the next rotation of Earth Journey. It takes millennia to return to Earth after we die. I weep at the majesty of our ancestors, and give thanks to the opportunity to witness them. Tears freeze. The heat in my core starts to burn and the world turns upside down.

  Then there is silence. Emptiness. Only the wind is taking up space. I open my eyes and awaken from what must have been a dangerous dream. My chest and throat hurt. I had unzipped my coat, seemingly in offering. The cold had its way with me. Ice in lung, Ice on chest, Ice in heart. Zipping back up and running home to the now comforting thumping of Johnny Cash’s bass.

  Ananaa asks me where I have been. “Out walking,” I say and retreat to the bathroom, where I blow my nose and flush out the bright and glowing green substance that the Northern Lights have left in my head. It is squirming like larvae.

  This tapestry has not been woven

  By accident

  Silken deception

  Falsehoods twisted into each fibre

  The blue water lost to a sea of red

  Red tide

  Poisonous intent disguised by the shine

  Of the thread

  When we weave,

  We weave past longing, past glory, past greed

  Weave the hunger

  Weave the need

  To conquer to vanquish to quell

  With quill with seed

  We plant ideas

  With bullets we heed

  We raise fists we draw

  Fine lines to hold each other

  Up against the ships

  Sails canvas story silk

  Survival is the only guide

  We weave our own sinew

  Make a net

  To catch those not yet dead,

  Those drowning on dry land.

  We will harvest the truth.

  We will collect the rent.

  This tapestry is being rewoven.

  There are too many foxes this year. It usually happens in a four- to seven-year cycle, all dictated by the rains and melt. Plenty of rain means that the lemmings and their young are forced above ground, where they are easy prey for the fox pups. If too many foxes survive, there won’t be enough food for them when winter comes along.

  They populate the dump, and all garbage cans in town are full of them. I once saw five foxes in one rusted garbage can. Some become rabid and all the children need to walk to school carrying a stick, preferably with a nail in it. All of the houses in Nunavut must be built on stilts because the permafrost makes it impossible to sink foundations. The space under the house makes a perfect hiding place for foxes. Foxes are such steadfast and mysterious creatures. If a wolf and a lynx mated, perhaps their love child would be Fox, who seems to embody the uncanny agility and size of a cat coupled with the strength and durability of a canine. My friend Eugene had to get rabies shots in his tummy after being bitten; it did not look pleasant. I was proud of him for not crying. Let’s avoid rabies.

  My father and I go out with the handgun to kill some foxes. Satisfying dry cracks and snaps of sound as the gun goes off. I feel like a hero for an instant, saving the foxes from a slow death of starvation. My father is strong, self-assured. I hope that someday this fortitude emerges from my fragile psyche. The foxes run. The foxes die. I mourn them, but I understand that there is danger in mourning for those who would not mourn for you in return. Empathy is for those who can afford it. Empathy is for the privileged.

  Empathy is not for Nature.

  Our family had dogs that would have to be buried or put out of their misery. My father always took care of his work, even if it was mercy-killing our family pets. He did it without allowing room for regret. He just did it. Like how we are all born, like how we all die. No choice, only action. These foxes will die of starvation; better to put them out of their misery. These foxes will harm schoolchildren; better to put them out of their misery. These humans will destroy the earth; better to put them out of their misery. Right now we are Earth Eaters, but I want to be a blood lover, an oil spewer, someone with a great wingspan, a spirit sipper, a flesh licker. I want it all. I kill a mountain of foxes in my dreams. Mercy killings, but I do enjoy it.

  Speaking of tonight’s dream: The sky is the kind of orange that only happens in the fall after the midnight sun begins to retreat. Rolling hills of sandstone rock look like pages of books, making it impossible to walk except for thin paths of spines or else you lose your balance. The path is guarded by sentries, hundred-foot-tall polar bears, who are all facing south. I must pass them one by one. I’m terrified but know it must be done. These are beasts of Protection and Warning. I am thankful they remain still as I meekly seek passage through their domain. The sun is setting and the sky is crisscrossed with airplanes, each leaving plumes of thick grey sickness. None of the planes can fly past the line of sentries. One half of the sky lives while the other half dies. Dead skies. The sentries can only hold the balance for so long.

  We ARE the land, same molecules, and same atoms. The land is our salvation. Save Our Souls.

  The land is our salvation. Breathe. Fuck. Feel.

  Empathy is for those who can afford it.

  Ice will crack, blood will flow. Sun in Ice. Ice in lung.

  Speaker of tongues.

  There are so many ways to be empty.

  Ice in lung, flush of cheek, blood in mouth.

  There is a storm of light, of gravity, of silence. No ground nor sky. I wander through the electricity and the void. Something is very wrong. Something is magnetic. It is calling me from a mile away. I listen to the calling. It gets louder and all of a sudden out of the sound, you are there. You are at my feet, but you lie on nothing. I turn my head
towards you slowly. You are grey. Every inch of you is a mottled, sickly grey. A dead colour. Iridescent streaks of silver begin swirling under your skin. Small whirlpools of activity. Life? I realize that the movement comes from blistering and searing. It’s as if you are being burned with a blowtorch in a hundred places, and the whorl of colour is the only evidence of your suffering. The boiling and burning hypnotize me. This is almost beautiful, until you look at me.

  Our eyes meet. Black eye on black eye. The panic is a gift from yours to mine. The agony and the fear lock us together in a holy union. Your mouth opens and emits a toothless scream. Your hair falls out. The torture. The Pain. Your mouth opens wider and wider until the skin begins to rip. When we skin a caribou, we often separate the skin from the flesh by inserting our hands between the membranes and then peeling. This is happening to you with invisible hands, and then the skin reattaches itself so you can feel that same thing again and again. Oil begins to seep from all of your orifices. Death is a thousand times more desirable than this. You lie at my feet. Writhing. Undying. Pleading. I am frozen. There is nothing I can do but look into your seyes and bear witness. I will always bear witness.

  Where have I fallen?

  We rolled the dice and

  You got a six and

  I got a one

  And now the Deep Knowing is gone.

  Now the tears belong to others,

  And all we can do is yearn.

  There is a limb of mine

  That still belongs to you

  It hurts like any ghost limb would

  Leave me to the memories

  Of your braid,

  Leave me with my hollow decisions

  And foolish ways.

  Because I still pine

  I still pine.

  The river was frozen. It paved a long, undulating path, smooth and white. The snow was blinding because the sun had come back to bounce off it. It is an ocean of white that covers every surface. From the skies fall the light, minuscule flakes that get blown around easily. The kind of flakes that love to kiss sundogs and leave a thin film of moisture on your face. The flakes of snow that blow up your sleeves and try to get to your heart. The kind of snow that still buries our dead. I drove my snowmobile under the river bridge, the windshield almost scraping the bottom of the steel girders. Continuing on my frosty way to Mount Pelly, I rode my snowmobile fast and absorbed the bumps with my strong thighs. I was elastic. I was powerful, the speed creating calmness. The day was crisp and the wind penetrating. It was one of those days when it seems as if you can see farther than other days. Eagle eyes. The landscape reflected all the morphing memories of every northern place I had been. The snow fought back, my machine riding waves of movement. Whiteness forever.

  I noticed something strange in the distance. There seemed to be a two-storey house at the base of Mount Pelly, a mansion by Cambridge Bay standards. A Nunavut HAP house mansion. It was absolutely unheard of to have a house like that there, and I began to suspect that this was a dream. The house approached much too quickly and offered a serene welcome. I walked into the house and looked around. The bright sun made the day wholesome. In the kitchen my brother was chopping tuktu for some stir-fry but he had a massive raven head. He looked at me and squawked in raven language and I understood him perfectly. He said, “Hey, Sis, check this shit out! HAHAHAHAA! I love being a fucking raven! SQUAWK!” We were laughing our heads and beaks off and I heard an indescribable sound downstairs. It sounded like a glow.

  I followed the sound. The pine stairwell was a very long and steep so the descent took an incalculable amount of time. I arrived at a wood-panelled porch with two giant picture windows. The sun was so bright that everything was sparkling outside, and there was a slight howl to the wind. Rows of miniature crystal animals were lined up on the windowsills, shining. Raven. Tulugak. Caribou. Tuktu. Polar Bear. Nanuk. Lemming. Avingnak. Wolf. Amarok. Movements that were barely perceptible were teasing me from inside the figures. Were they calling me? I shrugged it off, attributing it to the glare of the springtime sun.

  The windows took up two full walls of the porch, and that’s when I truly knew it was a dream because a porch like that would cost a fortune to heat. I was admiring the landscape in complete stillness when a small shadow appeared in the distance. It moved sideways and slowly began to approach the house. I squinted my eyes but could not make out the form, which seemed to change its gait every few metres. Long and darting, sinuous. It was a fox! As he came closer I realized that he was huge, man sized. My fear was overridden by his maleness, by his grace. I could see every hair on him, white and perfect. The wind blew around him and his black eyes spoke to me, “Let me in.”

  The pitch in his mind-voice opened a vault of understanding in me. This was not the first time this fox had come to me, and it wouldn’t be the last. His voice was the light; his voice was all the darkness. It was the deepest, smoothest voice I had ever heard. My flesh was softened, my will blinded. The world opened beneath me, and the dawning of what life really meant was projected through him. He shot me with truth and the burden of our bodies. I saw in an instant the spiritual world we all ignore. Like the radio waves we can’t see, it is everywhere. Our bodies trapped in our dark masses, we have forgotten how to see. I saw the parliament of the spirit law and the congregation that forced us into flesh. When they spoke and I saw a chain, a spiral of generations, and a curse laid two hundred years ago upon the fox clan. Fox had gotten greedy and ate all the lemmings one year, therefore the raven queen died. She cursed Fox as her last breath left her, casting a screaming inkblot on the future well-being of all foxes. The Fox clan had been weakened since.

  I opened the door, and he brushed past me on all fours. His scent hit me, so pungent that it almost stung my nose. It also opened a pathway of urgency within me. I was deeply agitated, but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. His scent penetrated me, travelling down my esophagus and leaving warmth in my throat and paving a highway into my belly. My bones seemed to loosen. I couldn’t move.

  Then he spiralled his limber body onto a chair, sitting like a man. He had a huge black and orange cock, veiny and pulsating. I knew I had to put him in my mouth. I was feeling a mixture of revulsion and an uncontrollable tingle in my mouth, almost an itch. His cock would satisfy it.

  I put him in my mouth and started to suck on him. Smooth and delicious, there was no room for words. His urgency accumulated throughout his torso, his legs, everything was coming towards me. All of him collecting like a bullet. He got so hard in my mouth that it was like sucking on a stone, and I couldn’t budge him even a millimetre. He exploded but I knew not to let it down my throat. I felt a release in me too, and felt a gushing hot liquid between my legs. I looked down and there was a glowing golden puddle between my knees. His cum was silver and my whole throat was emitting a bright yellow light, so bright that you could see into my head. I knew if I swallowed his cum, it would change the lifeline of my clan for generations, we would have the fox way in our movements, and part of the curse would be carried as well.

  I walked over to the door and opened it, and let his cum out of my mouth. It tasted so good it was a hard thing to do. As it landed it melted the snow and grew giant lichens and flowers for a fifty-foot radius. I turned back to him and the whole inside of my mouth and throat felt so good I could hardly see. Blinded and dazed, I wanted to live in that sublime moment always. It’s the best I have ever felt. He gave me a fox figure to place alongside the others and I understood. I had cleansed him of Raven’s curse.

  So limber, my fox. He got off the chair and gracefully left. He looked back just once, and I saw myself through his eyes. I was his saviour and was covered in light, almost weightless, like a jellyfish in a giant fishbowl. Knowing, lonely, perfect. No other king or queen could come to me for cleansing for another few hundred years, and my offspring would all carry an instinct in them. The knowing. The healing. The Cleansing.

  Remember that time when the sun

  Sat side
ways just to please you?

  Orange sun-faced and long-shadowed,

  We shunned the rest of the world and rested cross-legged

  Only to uncross them and run

  We cracked open pops and unzipped our souls

  To encapsulate the wind and

  Placate the restlessness

  We didn’t know we would spend the rest of our lives running

  Or we would have slowed down

  Remember that time the river ran backwards

  Just to please you?

  The eddies grabbed our toes and travelled up our legs

  The sun much sharper it reminded us

  That those eddies wanted to eat us

  Numb and bloodless

  Toes curdled we

  Ran until the river forgot we were there

  Remember the time the wind stopped breathing

  Just to please you?

  White-cheeked frostbite with alternating hands

  To cover the pain

  Backs to the wind for protection

  We did not need vision

  Only the moon was guiding our laughter

  When you fell and all stood still

  The world stopped spinning and I realized

  Your eyes were the centre of the earth

  Another morning, another warning. Time to numb out in school again. Today in health class we are taking sex ed. It’s so embarrassing. As if any of these boys know what a clitoris is. Our teacher has massive breasts and wears low-cut shirts. That’s all the sex ed anyone is getting: have big tits and show them off and get all the attention. The boys make excuses to ask her for help as I retire to the lowest rung of the feminine hierarchy.