Photograph of a snowy mountain during nightime (2019)
Then I wished I’d never wished for anything because then you don’t get let down. But that’s like wishing the past was different, and that’s not allowed, or at least it can’t ever come true.
BY SIMON BRYANT
IMAGE BY AVERY NIELSEN WEBB
The mental health counsellor said writing out my story might help. I don’t know about that, but here goes.
The counsellor also said many months ago that the new doc was pretty good, and that I needed some medication, so I had to see her anyway. Docs come and go, way up here in the north. “What’s going on?” she asked, and it sounded like she cared. Where do you start? I told her, “I’m having a hard time. My brother hung himself, and then I went to another town to get away from it, but three days later my best friend there killed herself too.” It wasn’t easy to share that, so I sort of blurted it out. Her face said she heard me and wasn’t thinking about her own stuff, so I told her the rest: “After that, I came home. But it happened again. Another friend, and then somebody else close. It’s following me.”
“Damn,” the doc said, “that’s harsh.” She was pretty good. I don’t blame her for anything.
I told her I’d sort of freak out maybe four or five times a week. Whenever I started thinking too much, especially about those four. Also, my bones hurt, all the time, and even stuff that used to feel good hurt.
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like it even hurts to have sex now.”
“That’s unfortunate,” she said, “Say more.” I told her it was okay six months ago, with the same guy. That I hurt everywhere now, not just down there. So, we broke up. Doc said we could check if there was any physical problem, but not right away because it sounded more like grief and we should talk about that. She said it’s normal not to be into it if you’re grieving. She said it takes time to heal. I guess so. She asked if any other things that used to feel good don’t feel good anymore and I said yeah, so she asked, “Like what?” I said, “Like breathing.” Then she stopped for a couple of beats and looked at me like she was trying to decide something.
“I think you’re probably depressed as well as anxious,” she said. “That can happen.” Whatever, I didn’t feel good. I asked about medications and she said that was a good idea but sometimes they can cut you off a bit from reality.
“Sounds good,” I said.
But she was pretty sharp. “Hey, suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem,” she suggested. I didn’t say anything. Easy for you, I thought, but what if my problem really is permanent? She said it’s sometimes normal to feel like nothing’s ever going to get better, but then it does, and I shouldn’t forget that. I guess, maybe. I was ready to go.
“Please tell someone or call us if you feel like harming yourself, okay?” she asked. She was alright so I said I would. She told me I could call or drop by the clinic any time at all, and to see her in a week for a follow-up. She gave me a few little white pills for when the anxiety happens. They were supposed to work quickly and not last too long. I figured they weren’t enough. She prescribed some antidepressants but said those wouldn’t kick in for a few weeks and that talking with the mental health counsellor was really important.
I was going to walk home but my auntie the receptionist called me over before I got out the door and said my uncle Mattie was going to be finished soon, and that he had his truck and could give me a lift. Everybody knows everybody here, and I didn’t feel like talking, but Mattie doesn’t ask too many questions, so that was alright. I sat in the waiting area with my parka’s hood pulled right up and didn’t talk with anyone. Mattie showed up a few minutes later and we got in his truck which was running outside. You can’t shut off motors too long here in the deep winter unless they’re plugged in. Otherwise, or you pretty much have to wait for spring, or pay to tow the thing into a heated garage for a day or so. Mattie is alright. He has pretty bad arthritis, but he said his medications were finally helping. He reads a lot and even knows his way around the sky. He seemed eager to tell me about a shooting-star shower that was supposed to happen that night, the Geminid shower, I think he called it. “There could be up to two hundred every hour,” he said. “Maybe especially bright.” I pretended to be interested because he was giving me a lift.
At home, there were like fifteen people living together, all on top of each other all the time. “Like a can of sardines,” you might think. Except back then when I’d open a can of sardines, I’d feel jealous of the fish, so neatly snuggled in their little tin coffin. There’s always, always someone around you in the house, which is fun when it’s fun, but no fun at all when it isn’t. Everyone was super COVID-stressed about then, too, I think. It gets to you. The kids were wound up and fighting, stuck inside, and the school was closed. Not much was happening that afternoon. Right there with everybody, I got that anxiety again, only worse and worse. So I went to the bathroom and took a pill. They’re super small. My hand might have slipped, so maybe I took two. Or a few. I said I was going out for a smoke. It was ever freezing, about minus forty-five, slightly windy and already dark. I thought I saw thousands of tiny shooting stars, but turns out they were just ice crystals breezing by in the streetlight. If you cry at times like that, your tears freeze right away, and it hurts to breathe in deep. You can throw boiling hot water in the air and it just freezes straight into a cloud and blows away. Never hits the ground. My face began to hurt but I didn’t care. There was a strange-looking cloud over the bay, kind of stringy. It slowly got thicker and bigger and started swirling, with streaks of all kinds of colours. Then, in about a minute, the whole sky became freaking amazing. Unbelievable.
I walked away from the streetlights, looking up with the wind on my back, and kept going. It was ever cold out. I used to believe that the northern lights were the spirits of the dead and that if you whistled, they would come around. Then I learned it was all about solar magnetic radiation or whatever. So, then I figured maybe you just drop off the edge when you die, and don’t know anything, anyhow, anymore, and don’t care.
Suddenly, I saw my first really big bright shooting star, for about two whole seconds, like someone slashed a lightsaber halfway across the sky. I wasn’t ready and it made me gasp. Quick, make a wish, make a wish… I didn't wish those four could be alive again. Cause they’d probably kill themselves all over again, right? Anyway, everybody knows it’s a one-way permanent solution. Good for them. I didn’t wish we could all go join them, because then wouldn’t everything be as messed up there as it is here? I don’t know. So, I just wished everything would be okay, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like. Lame, I know, but whatever. I actually tried to whistle but my lips wouldn’t do it. And then I saw another shooting star and wished that I could figure out something to wish for and that my face wasn’t so frozen. Nothing changed. I guess two for one is a no-go, even for minor wishes like that. Then I wished I’d never wished for anything because then you don’t get let down. But that’s like wishing the past was different, and that’s not allowed, or at least it can’t ever come true. By then I probably wasn’t thinking straight about wishes or anything. I couldn’t even walk straight, but I must have made it quite far because I couldn’t hear the big generators that never stop, except once years ago when I was small when we all went to the school with the backup power while things got sorted out. It was like a big party; everybody together looking out for each other, making jokes, and sharing food. The power came back on after a few hours, but I wanted to stay there forever. Things still aren’t sorted out for me. The northern light show flared up again and crackled so I could hear them like they were trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t understand and they started fading away. But there were still more shooting stars. So, I wished everything didn’t hurt so much and then I really didn’t feel any pain anymore. Very cool. I wished I could figure out how to get back from where I’d wandered to, but that didn’t work. The light show was gone. I turned back, I think, except I couldn’t think anymore. Do you know what I mean? I kept walking until I felt like I wasn’t there anymore, then suddenly the ice wasn’t there anymore either; just a falling feeling and cold, cold water.
Ever-cold! Wake-the-dead cold. Icy water out of nowhere up to my waist, standing on rock-bottom.
I must have been close to one of those little islands that split the ice with every tide. I bet I cursed. I must have flopped and wriggled out like a seal onto the ice’s edge. I guess no polar bears were around. I knew I was about to die anyway, but then I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Too late. The last thing I remember thinking was that there was no last star to make one last wish on.
My younger brother Johnnie told me later that he stepped outside for a smoke not too long after me — for real — and didn’t see me anywhere. He’s a good hunter. He looked around and saw my track headed away from town. He knew I wasn’t dressed for minus forty and said later he felt spooked. So, he went back inside and found out on Facebook that I hadn’t shown up at anybody’s place, then called Simeonie and the others. Simeonie can track anything right through the middle of nothing, with or without his old dog he says, but I guess nobody ever asked the dog about that. They said it took quite a while to find me, and it was lucky they did because I was already unconscious. My legs were frozen stiff, even after they cut away my clothes at the clinic.
I got out of the hospital two months ago. The doc says healing takes time. Things still aren’t any better; they’re just a different kind of terrible. Maybe it’ll be better someday when the stumps are healed good enough and I’ll get fake feet and learn to walk again. I know people care about me. I remember the pain of waking up in the airplane on the way south, and how the medic smiled and said I’d be okay, then gave me meds that put me back to sleep like a baby. I know my family and friends love me, and I’m part of this often hurting, sometimes happy little community in the middle of nowhere. The mental health worker says to be patient, persevere, take the meds, keep writing, because that seems to help me. I guess. And that’s my story.
Except maybe there’ll be another shooting star shower out of nowhere. Maybe next shooting star I see, I’ll wish… that I’d told those four how very, very much I cared about them.
Simon Bryant, BSc., MD, M.Phil. (Humanities) is a polymath and self-taught writer. He feels that all life is one but that we get distracted from this essential fact by our culture, and our egotistical selves. He hopes to create something of lasting value to others, through his writings.
Image: Avery Nielsen-Webb, Snowy Mountain during Nighttime, digital photograph, 2019.
Edited for publication by Alanis Picardo, as part of the Professional Writing and Communications Program
The HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Applied Research & Innovation.