COLD CHAOS:
Stories from a North

She stands at the cafeteria entrance and knows she is seeing them for the last time.

It won’t be enough, though.

A hesitation settles at the back of her throat, her hands damp, her skin tingling, and she wants to exhale the sight of these men. For so long now, she has done this, sixty days of strutting like a model on a runway made of stained, sticky linoleum.

The neon tubes hanging from the ceiling, fifty of them, highlight what she doesn’t want the world to see.

Curves made of juvenile flesh.

The loudness dizzies her gait as she moves toward the food trays. She hears their voices—a choir composed of baritones and tenors synchronizing to her movement. She continues to walk the one hundred meters that separates her from the tray stacks.

It feels like an eternity.

She fights the urge to look up, to meet their faces, and she wishes she had the courage. She could reciprocate, pretend she doesn’t care. But flattery is there, mixed with her timidity, weaving itself into the ambiguity these moments push her into—a fear that never leaves. She feels guilty, and she feels conflicted, this wanting to be seen; wanting attention. A beam that makes her feel good.

It scares her, and it's the last thing she will remember to never forget. The voices dimming—an abnormality. The silence broken by the swishing sound of a spoon sliding to the floor. A baby spoon, a bit like me, she would acknowledge years later, not-smiling. The feeling of the spoon touching her heel before ricocheting on the steel leg of a table, spinning onto itself until reaching the far end of the industrial kitchen.

The laughter.

The flushing of a young face.

 

Adeline, feeling groggy, walks into the plane and looks around. What’s going on guys, why’s the Twin empty? Her voice, always calm, has a soprano hint to it. Hey there, the pilot says, headgear resting on his shoulders, we were expecting you to be on last night’s flight. What happened? And yes, mornings aren’t so popular around here, especially not on a Saturday.

My contract is done. Going back to the main camp before heading to Montreal in a couple of days.

Had a party, I see, the co-pilot says, brushing a finger under both his eyes.

She answers with a laugh, a non-committed one, and one that says there is nothing to add, that it's none of your business, and scanning the two rows of seats, choosing one close to the cockpit. That’s it guys, she says, last trip from this place.

You’ll miss us.

Not so sure of that.

Not coming back next year?

You think the camp will still be here? It’s a satellite camp. A sub-camp. But no, even if Dad insists, I am not coming back. Two hundred working men, ten women, eight out of which are over forty. No thank you.

They prepare the flight deck, switch what needs to be switched, and press what needs to be pressed. Well, whatever the case, you, Miss Adeline, are ours for the duration of this flight. Strap your seatbelt on because we are flying you through these skies, one last time—maybe?

And she thinks these men are good men, happy men, even, and as if tied to a bond, to a higher order, taller and wider than the one their instincts could drive them to reach—so far below. Maybe the skies are where it’s at? A place where you can hide and be more, where you fear nothing, and the horizon is beyond the keeping of dreams and hopes, because their weight is ignorant of all of life’s tenses.

And why am I thinking of all this now, anyway? She places her backpack on the seat beside hers. Something of a commotion bubbles inside her belly, collisions where emotions have become tactile. Lifting her head she watches the pilots maneuver, hears them speak with someone she assumes is guiding them from the pseudo control tower, and she sinks further into her seat, knowing the execution of her ritual is near.

Wait for the Twin to taxi to the bottom of the strip, she tells herself.

She looks through the porthole and listens to the engines revving up and she feels the small plane moving, the land there, and always so bear, always, and she thinks she hears it say it will never be more than what it is, that it doesn’t care, because what the other worlds see as inclemency, is exactly what it is, a violent core, one there to stay, no matter the destruction, no matter what humans will manage to extort from it.

Good-bye, Fontanges, she whispers to the camp, and see you never again.

The Twin Otter finally reaches the edge of the short runway, veers right, and comes to a semi-halt. The roar of the plane loudens and its speed increases and she feels the small of her back being pushed against her seat, the only good sensation flying has ever given her.

When she feels the wheels conclude its barter with the ground—oil for air, ruggedness for levity, leaving the tarmac and becoming airborne, she starts to count from two hundred, backwards, until she thinks she is safe, unaware of the falsity inside her, that the world is flawed, and keeps pretending it's not.

We’ve reached cruising altitude, Adeline, she hears one of the two men yell. Should be there within the hour. Relax, honey. All will be okay.

Because they know her, she thinks, gratefully. Thanks guys. She wiggles her shoulders, retrieves a yellow Walk-Man from her backpack, presses play, and adjusts the headphones to her ears. Bowie.

Now, about last night.

She needs to recall it better.

She had packed a small suitcase, quickly gathering the few pieces of clothing she had brought with her for her week-to-week stays.

She had slid into her usual Lois jeans and oversized sweatshirt on which James Bay is written—bold and solid lettering, an ambivalence, about this place; this land, an unsustainable home at best.

Then, of course, her Kodiak boots, half-laced.

Charlotte, the only other girl still inside her trailer, had organized a farewell party. For you and me, Adeline. I’m leaving next week, too, remember?

Adeline had said, yes, she would go, and postpone her departure to the morning, not wanting to displease her friend. But in truth, she hadn’t felt like attending the gathering, wishing instead to get back to the main camp and from there, return to the city as soon as possible. She felt out of place, just as any nineteen-year-old girl would.

Trailer number eight, the surveyors’ lodging, and they had walked into room five, a bedroom soon to be stuffed with smoke and music. There had been gin and rum and mixes of some sort, the loudness filling the wanting of escaping this place.

Because time prolonged here was unforgiving.

Like all sleeping quarters laid out in each of the mobile homes, the room was deep but narrow. The crowd, typical of any Friday night in the wilderness, was boisterous. So much drunkenness, and so early for that, Adeline had thought.

Feeling as though already gone herself, she had chosen to remain close to the door while sipping a can of Coke.

His usual strut, holding a beer, she saw him walk toward her. His smile, bright, his eyes, welcoming. Off tomorrow, Adeline? the blond-haired surveyor had asked.

She fixed her hair. Jim, hey, yes. How about you, when are you going back to school?

In two weeks. This gig here was part internship, part not enough pleasure. Finishing your last year before graduation, I think?

Yes, and I can’t wait.

He had remained standing, erect, like she was, to her left, and with intermittent side-looks had probed more. Tell me, what is it you missed most from life back home?

She had smiled before replying, considering the young man before her. It's lights, I suppose, and the sight of bright colored grass and the feeling of sunburn on my shoulders. I’ve fantasied about those everyday while hitting on the typewriter. True story.

And what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?

A movie, then Dairy Queen, she had laughed.

“Risky Business?”

Nope. “Breathless.”

A crush on Richard Gere, I see.

I’m afraid so.

Me, you know, and thank you for asking, by the way, he had added with a wink, it’s when we approach the airport from above and I see all those swimming pools. That’s when I know I’m home. Blue circles and rectangles, those are my cues. I miss the heat, too, the relief water—normal temperature water that is—brings to the body, he had laughed. I even miss the smell of chlorine. Yup. But most of all, it’s the sound of music coming from a car’s speaker I miss most. Radio, like with a shit-ton of stations you can switch from, that and the sensation of driving on roads that feel like they’ve been painted with velvet.

Someone she had often seen at the office, but had never spoken to, was seated on the bed perpendicular to them, playing a twelve-string guitar.

America, he had noted.

Yes. “A Horse With No Name.”

And they had stood there, listening and not talking.

Two hours passing, fast and slow, and fatigue snuck in behind her eyes; they had become dry, and a migraine was on its way.

I have to go, she had told him, placing a quick kiss on each of his cheeks. Beer still in hand, he had looked at her, staring the way they all did. Eyes reddened by excess, eyes that said, I don’t want to sleep. Or maybe I do. With you. She hadn't heard him ask her to stay, that the fun had just begun. To drink more. That he would take care of her.

No.

Walking toward Charlotte, wanting to tell her she was leaving, she had felt a hand wrap around her waist, pulling her back. It was nice to spend the summer with you in my vision, Adeline. Girls like you make it bearable for boys like me, you know, to stay.

Another one, she had thought, rolling her eyes.

Wiggling out of the forced embrace, and with the side of her hand mimicking the cutting of a throat, she had signaled to Charlotte she was done and leaving—now. Discreetly, feeling relieved, she had left and had walked the corridor leading to the outside staircase. Dawdling toward her trailer, she had looked up. The sun had started its descent an hour before, leaving sketches made of oranges and pinks on the northern firmament. The party had started early, she remembered thinking. A good thing.

It was the scent of alcohol that woke her, she realized from her seat. Keeping her eyes closed, she had thought it a dream until a weight pressed on the edge of her mattress.

Adeline, she had heard.

Above her, two faces.

She had lifted herself to a seated position, hugged her nightgown with one hand while pushing a man’s torso away from her with the other, and she had laughed.

Stop it.

But girl, your door was unlocked.

Her eyes widened. The security guard responsible for the surveillance of her trailer, a woman, had left for the weekend.

A blanketed sensation. A soft violence, non-consensual.

The night, compressed, a failed fugitive, and at dusk, curled-up in her bed, wet and slimy, she had questioned the goal at the heart of heredity’s purpose. It is flawed, she had concluded, it randomly pursues, ill aware, all things made of life and death. It will fool the world and its goodness, for there are no signs, physical signs, warning you that menaces are slinking. Blind spots—their den. She had tried to smile at her thought—it seemed so silly, if only they had been like the Kennedy’s. Because one sees them coming, their teeth giving them away—unavoidable icebergs—all of them, and for the next thousand years, it will be so. Yet, she had realized, I wasn’t able to distinguish white souls from dark ones.

Bowie’s tape cassette comes to an end, and she hears the whiteness of noise—its rhythm now gone, and then a quick transition to a voice telling her to come back and look. Through the porthole she notices the plane’s right-side propeller gradually fall still. Four idle blades facing the wind, their stance remaining upright, and she soaks it in.

She hears the men, their backs to her: A flash storm formed above the airport, Adeline. We need to circle the air further away from here, and we need to manage what is left of the fuel. So … had to cut one engine out. But don’t worry. We do that all the time. She says nothing, afraid of the past telling more than what reality is saying, now.

Whatever happened the night before she can’t address—there's space inside of her head, too much space. She looks out again, sees water coming fast and steady, water and more water, too much of its detail, crisp and clear and so vivid.

Swirls, currents. Cold.

Guys, she wants to say, feeling paralyzed, look at me now. Reassure me like you do each week when you shuttle me from the main camp and back.

Both men are silent.

A soft panic settling in like an unavoidable presentiment.

The plane descending, and there's no land approaching.

She braces herself, grabs the arm of her chair, not understanding why when flying so low, nothing impacts them.

Adeline, hang on, we’re landing.

There is no time to understand more of the moment life is bringing to her; she feels the plane hit the ground, hears it rumble to a complete stop.

The men cut the remaining engine and silence befalls the cockpit.

They remove their headsets and turn to her and say, all is good, that they’ve landed the Twin on an emergency land strip built in the middle of the river. The Galina strip. They unbuckle their seatbelts, and she does the same, dazed.

Adeline has become pale—paler, her skin against the auburn of her locks. Let’s step out and get some air, Adeline.

They lead the way, disembark, her behind.

Cold and shivering, Adeline steps away from the plane and looks at the makeshift airfield. Everything in this land is makeshift, she whispers to herself. Even me.

Adeline, they say, come over here.

They watch her walk toward them, benumbed, her hands shaking as she brings her hoody closer to her neck.

There is a boulder in her vision, and she focuses on it, using it as compass. She walks to it. Leaning against the boulder, she says she’s never asked his name. The oddness of it, she thinks, after all this time. Claude. And you? turning to the co-pilot. Daniel. How old are you, Claude? Twenty-eight. A bush pilot at twenty-eight, she whispers to herself. Me, Daniel adds, I’ll be twenty-four next month—September 1.

Hum.

Yes, and I’m old enough to tell you that as much as you think this place is nothing, just look.

The river, wild and strong, surrounds them. The strip of land, like an amputated isthmus forming the only ground they can exist on, ground that doesn’t ground her.

Will you be, okay?

I don’t know.

Listen, Adeline, Claude says.

Her throat tightens and inside her body, certainty is trying to tunnel a way.

He takes her hand. The quiet is full, no?

The sobbing, uncontrollable, is soft, and while she feels the warmth of her tears wet her cheeks, she knows something else is at play. Yes, it is, she mumbles.

He takes her by the shoulders, tells her all will be okay, that microbursts, like anything that flashes, die quickly. Like an improvised pause.

As one who lives above, Daniel adds, pointing to the skies, it’s about dealing with unpredictability, Adeline. That’s all it is. Same goes for the ground, same rules.

She looks up at the sky, its never-ending replicates of grey that rarely go away. Sometimes, she says, everything seems as one. Like there's no line on the horizon that I can really see. Like all is melting onto itself: one color, one smell, one image, one emotion, one sound.

And what do they feel all together?

I don’t know. It fluctuates. Either I fuse with it, or I spit it back.

Well, I’ll tell you this much, you can fuse with it, you can spit it out. Just don’t ignore it.

She slowly pivots—a slow dance, a hand on the boulder and almost amused says they should be called the sky thinkers, that she can see a little better now. Everywhere she looks, these horizons encircling her, and they tell her to listen hard, to listen well, to know when to know—that this moment, crafted by circumstances that befriend only the strong, will not ever emerge again, that this moment is there to rest here, to go nowhere but now, in a tomb that lies against the current of a river soon to be diverted.

Listen and see.

The gushing of waves.

The soft tickling of the rain.

A sun ray escaping the clouds.

And did you know that your name is not Adeline? Claude asks, complicity in his eyes.

Her smile says she wants to understand. It is tentative. Hopeful.

And he tells the story of the declinations of a tone; of a color. This place.

Yes, he says, as she holds on to his words—Duchess of Galina.