During the “stay at home” lockdown while we were all in the thick of the Covid pandemic, I began writing.
I felt claustrophobic and had to do something with my time to escape. It was either writing or reading, so I wrote the first draft of a novel I call Northern Wildfire. It’s about a young Indigenous girl who is agoraphobic with an affinity for fire who experiences a difficult upbringing, including being sex trafficked in a small town. I wanted to have an outlet to express my own experiences but also wanted to keep somewhat removed from the character, so I wrote her into fiction inspired by true events, which is how I often write.
This book is a tribute to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman and Girls.
Here is an excerpt of the work. The set up for this is Nyla, the main character, is talking in the first person about her friend Jewels:
Jewels grew up with her dad, who told her that her mom went crazy after she got what people now refer to as post-partum depression. Jewels was sad she wasn’t sad about it, that in fact her dad made up for her mom not being around. He spoiled her by buying her whatever she wanted. Every other week, Jewels ordered clothes out of the Sears catalogue. She always looked so trendy. “Sometimes,” Jewels said, “at night my mom will come and stand under my bedroom window and throw rocks, calling for me, but my dad just closes the curtains and pretends he can’t hear her.” Jewels subconsciously threw tiny pebbles at the ground as she disclosed a pity for her mother she didn’t know she had until she said it out loud. I could hear the hurt she masked with a smile before changing the subject quickly.
“Let’s get started on our fort.”
It was finally summertime and we could stay out longer. Jewels got me into trying to finish building the fort but we didn’t manage to get not even one nail hammered in before my mom came up to us out of nowhere on her way home from a heavy night of drinking, doing what she later joked with her sister on the phone as “the walk of shame.”
“Nyla, your tits are going sag when you’re older if you play with hammers,” she yelled through puffs of a cigarette. I put the hammer down until she left then started banging even louder, hoping it would add to the wicked headache I knew she was going to complain about later. I wanted nothing more than to finish that fort and one day live in it just to get away from her.
It made me sad to know that Jewels had a mom that actually wanted to be in her life but was kept out. Then there was mine who didn’t want anything to do with me. If I had to choose between which child was worse off, me or Jewels, I guess I’d say me because at least Jewels knew her mom loved her.
My mom smoked a lot and always left her misplaced lighters lying around the apartment. The first time I got a hold of one, I spent the entire night flicking the small flame off and on in the dark of my bedroom. I just laid there, staring at the blue and red flame until my thumb was numb and I couldn’t hold down the tongue of it anymore.
Growing braver, I managed to steal a few of my mom’s cigarettes one day from the back of the freezer, where she kept them, thinking the cold would keep them fresh. I didn’t want to try smoking alone so I tried to get Jewels to smoke with me. We met at the elevator, where I handed her a long, skinny white menthol.
“No, it’s alright,” she said.
“Come on.”
“No, I don’t want to.” She put her hand up in front of her mouth.
To my own surprise, I cornered her and held the burning end of my already lit cigarette so close to her eye that it could have nearly burned her blind for only a second.
“Whatever,” I said and blew a cloud of smoke in her face, trying to act like a movie star after practising blowing smoke rings.
When the elevator doors opened, Jewels ran out trying to hold back tears. I didn’t care then but later I wondered why I did it. I was supposed to be her best friend. Best friends don’t do that to each other, I knew that. Was I becoming like my mom? No. I would never allow it.
Later that night, I burned myself to try and rid the guilt of what I’d done. I let the steel end of the lighter heat up until it was red hot and pushed it hard against my cheek. The pain rang through every cell in my body, telling me to stop, but I fought off the voice and pressed down even harder until my skin brought the lighter back down to room temperature, leaving a blister in the shape of a horseshoe on my face that is still a noticeable scar even now.
This work is set to be published with Fernwood in 2024.