Love after the End Read online

  Auntie Leigh’s convenience store is ahead of us, attached to the band office and the hall. I see similar looking vans idling with business-looking Indigenous folks standing nearby having what I can only describe as disconcerting looks on their faces. As our van pulls up, Dakib is already opening the door, shooting a warning glare at me, half asserting her dominance and half asking me to stay put. She should know better by now; Koko-Wahê did raise both of us.

  I’m outside just behind her, grabbing her arm. “You tell me what’s happening or I’ll drop a damn house on you, so help me Manidoo,” I hissed. She glares, an ocean swelling behind her brown eyes. She pulls her arm free and grabs me, pulling me away from both vans and other people.

  “We’re leaving, and soon. I’m gathering you all now so we can get it all done beforehand. The new settlements are ramping up, and I fear they’ll take you no matter what now; Mars has a strong enough atmo sphere with arable land. Who do you think is going to do that work?” At this point, tears are spilling from Dakib’s eyes. “They already have the labour shuttles maxing out. The thing I’ve been working on is an exit strategy. We’re getting off this damn planet before they take any more of us.”

  I clench my hands into fists, feel my nails dig crescents into my palms, hear a dull ringing in my ears. I sway like birch trees during a prairie black cloud storm. I try and ground myself, breathe in and out, on counts of four, until the ringing stops and my chest isn’t heaving like angry earth sinking into the oceans. As my sight returns to me, I unfurl my hands and reach out to Axil, who looks quizzical. He gestures to Dakib and his shoulders rise in perfect synchronization with his sharp eyebrows. I shake my head, grunt a submission, and rest myself on his shoulder, this time letting my hand grip his and give two tight squeezes. He would make a good father if we had the chance to provide enough for a new generation. My reservations about him are clearly on my lack of ability to reproduce and the lack of opportunities to actually raise brown babies in a safer environment. Still, it’s messed up, Axil always in the shadows of my love. He smells of seneca root and ode’imin juices atop his sweat. Giiweden is snoring now and ashe is falling into themself, which we have gotten used to.

  Dakib slides into the van again, and this time, we peel out abruptly onto the road. The driver is quick and reflexive, his brow strong. I wonder if he is a lover of Dakib’s. She always held several, but this one, thick braided and real ancestor-looking, may have made his way into her heart. Rare. I wonder if he is a Sixer or not. It would explain some of the tension between Dakib and him maybe even give insight into some of the very tangible sexual tension. Axil must notice my ponderings, as I am now seated upright and watching. Nosy Auntie, he would say, telling me to mind my own, stay out of their bingo hall.

  Chhhhh, I’m nosy as all hell. “Dakib, who is this?”

  She shifts uncomfortably, shoulders tensing. She, always uncomfortable with her older sister snooping into her life, looks out the window at the fading birch tree line transforming into prairie grasslands. I know I hit a nerve; she’s holding her arm as if I injured her.

  “Name’s Archie. Kibby and I have been on this project since she was moved into the sector four years ago,” he states. Dakib tenses at Archie saying Kibby; it sounds like a bedroom nickname. “Nice to finally meet you, Niichiiwad-ikwe,” he finishes. The way he says ikwe gives away his Sixer heritage right away. They’ve been talking about me a lot by the sounds of it. He is trying too hard, awkwardly using ikwe to try and get me to like him. I already do. I wonder if he goes to sweats. Probably not. Not enough water left.

  I WAKE, NOT REALIZING I HAD DOZED OFF, awkwardly smacking my head into Axil’s. He grunts awake, lifting myself and him up. The van is parked. We’re clearly underground. Dakib is typing rapidly on her cellphone while Archie is grunting into his. Giiweden and ashe are unsettled, and rightfully so. I clear my throat and Dakib turns in her seat to face me. “We’ll be staying here for the next while. We have to run some tests, and honestly, stellar travel is a doozy.”

  I unbuckle, and my legs wobble as I climb out. Within minutes, we’re unloaded and in an elevator going down. Dakib is shivering with what I can tell is excitement. I elbow her and grin. “Spill already, sis!”

  “Okay, okay.” She’s grinning. “This facility is so large. I am so excited to finally show you around and share what I’ve been working on. We have a highly capable health team, and we can even get you into surgery by tomorrow, if that’s something you still want? It’s been a few years since you said so, but …” She trails off.

  Surgery. It’s been seven years since I said that in a café back when I used to live in the City, and at least a year before I started harvesting water from the plant life back home. Surgery without enough clean water meant infection, failure, and even death. Surgery meant money, meant status, meant nobility, meant off-world. Surgery meant womb. The technology meant I could get pregnant, have beautiful brown babies form inside me. Tears well up. This time it’s my turn for the ocean to breach behind my eyes. She grabs my arm. I must’ve been swaying, a habit I picked up after teenage trauma in the City. Giiweden looks at me, a deep yearning. I nod, seeing inipi fire and life in xyr eyes for the first time in a while.

  “The both of you could be getting any surgery done tomorrow. We have a hydro-recycler and some pretty high-tech healing centres, and you’ll be pretty well done healing before the Exodus!” Dakib is smiling, the elevator still descending. I face her, my eyes locking with hers. She straightens up because I have caught the word.

  “Exodus?”

  She begins to hold her arm and fidget nervously. Archie moves his weight from his left foot to his right.

  “Exodus, as in numerous folks leaving exodus? How many?” I ask.

  “Ni, a mass exodus. I can try to explain, but we have to go. The Senate is planning to swoop everyone up and force us into labour camps on the new settlements. They lied about trying to harvest the ice in comets and ice planets. They never had the infrastructure! Plus, the filtration needed would be beyond what is capable of the time. It will only be a matter of time before they come to take everyone capable from the Rez to work. The Moon’s atmosphere is so successful that their oceans formed sooner than anticipated, and now they’re filling the waters with formerly extinct species. But at what cost? Our brown bodies?

  “The project we’ve been working on is based on a discovery from nearly one hundred and fifty years ago: a planet that can sustain life, a planet nearly four times the size of Earth, existing within a star’s habitable zone! Over a hundred and thirty years ago, they sent terraformers and filtration systems to help prepare for our arrival, and it’s ready now! Cities are already built to sustain us, animals and plant life already transplanted. There are buffalo, Ni! Buffalo!” Dakib is crying now with Archie’s hand on her delicate shoulders. Axil is trembling, and ashe is clinging to Giiweden. Too good, this is too good to be true.

  “Who did we colonize, Dakib. Who did we kill for this?”

  A sob tears through her entire body, Archie embraces her, “No one, Ni! No one! There were no sentient life forms, a planet in its early stage of sustaining life, we just helped it along to get to a place where we can live!”

  “Why are you sobbing.” My questions are statements. A creeping ache blossoms in my chest.

  “We don’t have the supplies to take everyone, and—” She shudders as the elevator doors open to a concrete foyer illuminated in harsh fluorescents. We spill out.

  Archie begins to speak, “We don’t have the fuel for everyone. The size of the Arks makes the journey longer, and, well, we’re using energy from Earth’s kinetic core to fuel the trip. Upon takeoff, the core will cool almost entirely and cause significant damage to the planet. The magnetic field protecting Earth from solar winds and solar radiation will collapse and essentially turn Earth into the new Mars. The takeoff alone will cause enough damage that both the Moon and Mars settlements could be in trouble. The math can’t confirm their safety, but at this poin
t we need to leave. The amount of fuel needed to ensure the cryo-pods sustain between solar systems is large. This is all out of necessity.”

  “Necessity.” I don’t even realize I’m speaking. “Our people wouldn’t leave her, and you know it. We would stay until her last breath and go with her. We are the caretakers, and if she dies, we die too.”

  I have squared up with Dakib now, like ancient earth upended by excavator maw. Face to face, I am an entire foot taller, and looking down, I see unfiltered rage looking back. Koko-Wahê’s biggest flaw: raising us both as stubborn rocks. But one of us is bound to break, very much like Earth after Dakib’s “Exodus.”

  I AM THE ONE WHO BREAKS. For Giiweden and ashe, I break. For a chance at a future, a chance at tomorrow, a chance at children, I break.

  It is in the recovery ward two weeks later in a bed beside Giiweden that I let myself collapse further. Sobs ripple through my shoulders like earthquakes, buckling Aki torn from her Nimama’s breast, a dry wail billowing out of my throat like ribbon in prairie tornado. I am screaming, not from the procedure, but the sacrifice. I am trying to let go of Nimama Aki. I am trying to reconcile with this selfishness: letting Nimama die so I can carry children. Why, why fall into such old thoughts? Wasn’t I happy without carrying child? Wasn’t I content with my body? I had years ago come to terms with what I thought was loss. Shouldn’t I be celebrating? This was what I always wanted, but at what cost?

  Axil comes and goes, checks in on Giiweden often, leaves me to scream because he knows I will be done soon enough. ashe is worried, no matter how much Axil tells them, “Nimama-Ni is wailing, letting it all out, this is her Ceremony.” Twice a day he brings me tea to soothe my bleeding throat. Dakib won’t visit, my screaming clearly too much for her.

  It is the third day when Giiweden starts crying beside me and whimpering, “Nimama, nimamaaaa, nimamaaaaaa.” I stop and try to climb out of bed to reach xem, but my pain stops me. Still, one of mine is crying out for me. I continue to ignore the pain and stand. I crash to the floor and gasp, stomach tight. My hands claw at my abdomen. Xe is crying out for help as the sharp pains ricochet inside me, the ringing in my ears grows cacophonous, and my senses are ripped from me.

  MY EYES ADJUST TO A BLUE LIGHT as I wipe the sleep from my eyes. I begin to sit up and I feel the familiar grip of Axil’s hands on my arm and back. “Take it slow, zaagidiwin, slow.” He guides me up. We are in a small medical room, the smell of metal and chemicals overwhelmingly present. I reach for my stomach, lift my medical gown and see fresh pink scarring down my hips, run my fingers down them, the nerves firing off with new sensation.

  “ashe? Giiweden?” I cry out in confusion. My head is an actinoform cloud and I can feel my fingertips going numb. Axil is humming to me, reassuring me. I want to see Giiweden and ashe. I need to see them. I need to see Dakib too. As I stand up, Axil rushes to help me, pulling me up too fast. I sway like I used to in the City after a night out as the blood rushes through me. I laugh; standing feels very different now.

  “There is something you should know, Ni,” Axil says as I lean into him, let my hands brace his forearms, my hair in a messy braid between us.

  “Hmm?”

  “We had to take off a day after you fell in the ward. You were out for a week. We’re on our way to the new planet.” The room stops spinning. My heart stills as I search my spirit for Nokomis Moon. I lift my numb hands and place them on my chest, as if she were there. I sift through myself, coming to the realization that Nokomis Moon had long been hidden since her violent colonization a decade ago.

  Axil guides me to a wheelchair. Although the newer technology in the earlier facility allowed for rapid healing, not practising the ability to walk has left me weary. He pushes us through the door, and I stop to feel the cool hum of the spaceship on my bare feet. The floor is a grated metal. I can feel us moving through space, braided delta rivers mixing with ocean brine, almost feeling like a freshly picked ode’imin tossed sneakily into hungry mouths. As we enter the corridor, I notice the simple rounded edges.

  “How big is this?” I stammer.

  “It’s called an Ark. I think the Collective named it the Ark of the Turtle’s Back. There are a hundred thousand pods and an atrium system that can sustain us all for twenty-five years if need be. The Ark is huge! There’s a crew of five hundred or so, and we’re in a fleet of five Arks.” Axil fills me in, continuing to steer me toward some destination he seems to know. The corridors are surprisingly empty, the only sounds being an omnipresent hum and his footsteps.

  We must’ve travelled for thirty minutes before we reach an elevator that whizzes us down (or at least what I think is down). He stops us as at a door marked C5-57 and places his thumb on a pad. The door hisses open to a small dwelling and four pods. Upon closer inspection, I notice each pod has a corresponding screen. I see our names, Nichiiwad Wahê, Axil Es, Giiweden Wahê-Es and ashe wahê-es. “Cryo,” I stammer, placing my feeble left hand on my lower abdomen.

  “This has really happened, hasn’t it? We are actually gone? How far are we?” I move to stand with him, taking this opportunity to inhale his scent deeply. It isn’t the same: our time in the City, and in the ship, has shifted him from raw seneca root and birch syrup to a faint scent of clean linens and his sweat. Still a comfort, for didn’t he move from the City all those years ago to follow me back into the Wild? The Wild. I remember and ask, “What about Nimama Aki? Is there anything left?”

  “Your sister and the team were correct. The liftoff of all the Arks at once caused the core to cool and lose a huge amount of kinetic energy. The Moon settlement is in a state of political chaos as their presidential parties were on Earth at the time. It may look like a complete overthrow since Mars has gone dark and they were the Military Stellar base. It was unfortunate, but the team said our survival was so important. The Moon is hanging on because of the gravitational pull, but they watched Earth’s magnetic field shift and solar radiation destroy the surface. It’s going to become another Mars and there aren’t enough resources to seed the planet back.”

  I do not recognize myself. Being so far removed from the death of Nimama Aki, I feel like how I imagined Koko-Wahê when the police took her from our Big Koko all those years ago. I brace myself on Axil, grasping his thin shirt, and press into his chest. A cacophonous ache takes deep root in my breast and belly. He embraces me tightly.

  I notice my bundle on a small shelf. I pull away from Axil, reaching for her. As I open the old brass clasp on the medium-sized briefcase, which is maybe a hundred years old, the faint smell of burnt sage and sweetgrass blooms. I pull my moon cycle medallion out and place it around my neck delicately. My and Dakib’s kohkum once owned this, brought it with her to her first Ceremony in the Wilds. It has delicate blue beads and gorgeous detailed imagery of the Moon and her cycles. I lay a hand on the medallion and reach for the smoothed-out stone that I burn the medicine on. Axil’s hand stops mine, and he looks at me and then at our living quarters.

  “We should go to the Atrium. The air filters there can handle the smudging. Here, the sensors would probably flood us or something,” he whispers into my ear. I pull a box of matches, the stone, a braid of sweetgrass, and bundle of white buffalo sage. The green shocks me back into the clinical and metallic world that encapsulates us. He leads me back to the wheelchair. Axil pushes me through the winding corridors and hallways. Eventually a door opens up into a large dome. Overwhelming at first, my eyes catch on the small garden thriving in a greenhouse in the centre. Axil moves us there. I see others, on different levels of the dome, moving around quickly, but return my attention to this smaller dome in the Atrium, the greenhouse.

  Inside is a circle of aki and green. The green belongs to a birch, a red willow, and a cedar with grass and ferns collectively at their bases. Small rocks with moss and lichen are scattered in the greenhouse. I open up my bundle again and place some sage and sweetgrass in the stone and strike a black match alongside it. My hands are shaky when I lower the match
into the bowl. The sage and sweetgrass are quick to light. I shake the match out and pull out a spotted owl wing fan from my bundle. I fan the small flames out and let the smoke tangle with the filtered air around me, curl around my hair, and seep into my skin. Axil inhales, presses his hands into my shoulders, and begins to pray. This is the closest I will be to the land that grew these medicines. The soil that birthed these medicines is gone, and there is nothing left but solar irradiated dust slowly freezing over.

  I hear the door open behind us and Axil turns my wheelchair around. I face Dakib, Archie, Giiweden, and ashe. Giiweden is using a brace but walking toward me already. ashe is upon me, head in my lap, hugging me tight. I lay one hand on their head, let my fingers take root in their black curly hair. I reach for Giiweden and xe reaches for me. Axil guides xem to a nearby chair and we fall into each other. Dakib and Archie watch, and I look up. She smiles weakly. I give her a onceover, note her new uniform: a black one piece with a utility belt. She looks good, especially since Archie is in an identical outfit.

  The smudge lingers. ashe and Giiweden let their limbs flow through it, bringing the smoke into them. Dakib and Archie sneak closer and closer, until I gesture to them. Archie sighs with relief and, surprisingly, Dakib undoes her bun and falls into the Ceremony quickly. She moves the lingering smoke into her and turns around for me to brush her back and fan her off. This is growth, for someone who ran from inipis and pipe ceremonies. She is allowing me to practise, and with her. Giiweden starts humming a Nokomis song, and ashe keeps beat with their hand on my lap. Axil nods to growing drumbeat. This sliver of Ceremony feels so natural, our songs so close, our medicine swirling around us. I do not want this to end, but Dakib steps back and returns her hair to a tight bun. We look like opposites, me still in a pale blue medical gown and my hair in a messy braid down the left side of my neck.