Asphyxiation

Asphyxiation

The Vancouver Sun later confirmed the events of that night: two hikers found two dead bodies at Camper Creek on the West Coast Trail on the sixth of May 1998. The article didn’t say who the hikers were, nor did it say who the dead Native Americans were, for what would the world do with those four meaningless names? None of the four was famous, beautiful, or rich: just normal people drawn together on one particular night. The encounter was determined by two simple factors: the speed of the hikers along the soggy trail and the speed of leaking gas that asphyxiated two men in a patrol cabin.

The hikers never knew the two indigenous people, except for what they wore that night, what booze they drank, and what side they slept on. And those simple details were just enough to make the dead bodies Human: capable of joking, singing, fighting, and eating. So the sudden termination of these lives confused the hikers, for they weren’t sure what they should feel about the death of two strangers. The hikers stared and stared at the bodies, perhaps feeling sadness for the friends, parents, and lovers of these men, but feeling only emptiness for the men themselves. They were just two more anonymous faces, frozen in their final dreams and nothing more than dead.

I. Dididat Nations

People have lived on Vancouver Island since the last ice age, when the Bering Strait froze and allowed human passage from Asia to North America. The Pacific Northwest tribes thrived for thousands of years in this rich ecosystem, where trees grow to such vast sizes that a hollow trunk may hold twenty people without much trouble. For thousands of years, the forest remained a bountiful network of life: moss and lichens crept over every tree...

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...we found the bodies, yet the crashing blue-green water spins me into a reality that is worlds away from the sight of stiff men. I'm not sure if this is healing or forgetfulness; all I can be certain of is the bite of the water on my skin and the dropping sun. I stare at my hand under the surface of the water, fascinated by how far away it looks and by the deep blue color of my fingernails. That hand isn't a part of my body, how can it be, it is deep in the water, opening and closing experimentally as water crashes on top of it. I want to leave it there, forever feeling the numbing water, forever fighting the currents that would wash it out to the Pacific Ocean. But then my arm moves, lifts my hand, and I realize it is mine, as are my legs and toes and wet matted hair. And the water keeps falling, pounding, rushing and I just stand there, staring, watching, waiting.