A Voices from the FOLD: Year 7 original essay (finalist for the the 2020 Indigenous Voices Awards).
FOREST FIRES AND FALLING STARS BY TREENA CHAMBERS
The sky has been thick with smoke off and on for the
“I was a bit worried when we had to drive with my
whole summer. Everyone we know is either fighting
door open so I could see the yellow line on the side of
fires or watching the sky for rain. Treesa’s boyfriend
the road.” I laugh again. The boys had the afternoon
and his buddies are firefighting about an hour from
off, so we decided to chance the drive, despite the
our grandparents’ farm.
fires and smoke, and hangout at the lake with them.
“I think with Roger here guarding us and the
As we were returning to the farm the wind shifted
cows between us and the mountain we’ll be safe
and smoke covered the highway. For a few hundred
from your Sasquatch.”
metres we crawled along hugging the center yellow
“Don’t be a bitch.” I laugh. I have an irrational fear
watching, hoping that no one was coming our way.
of being kidnapped by Sasquatch. It is so dark over-
But we made it back and we scored some beer
head that the milky way feels almost touchable. Roger,
from the boys. So, on our last surveillance free night we
my grandpa’s collie is snoring beside us and chasing
are laying here on our backs in the grass, looking up at
something in his dreams. Hopefully it’s Sasquatch but
the stars and drinking contraband. The bats overhead
I doubt it. Roger is loveable but useless.
are eating the mosquitoes that want to eat us, and the
Treesa giggles. “Whatever.”
cows in the field next to us are huddled up sleeping.
“That was quite a drive. Glad the smoke has cleared a bit. We can breathe. Well, expect for the cow crap. Eww.” We wanted to come and hang out with no parental units watching over us for a few days. We begged our parents to let us stay alone in our cabin on our grandparents’ farm. Surprisingly, they agreed. We won three whole nights to ourselves. It doesn’t seem like a lot of time; except I haven’t been more than three feet away from an adult since I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in February, a year and half ago this August. My own personal surveillance state. 10
Usually I close my eyes or look out the window while a chemo nurse pushes it in. I can tell when they’ve finished administering it by the metallic taste that forms in the back of my mouth.
