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My home town is very small, I keep it hidden in the middle of a river valley somewhere between Revelstoke on Ontario. Since moving to the Island in 1996 I have allowed loved ones to tease me about where I come from, the small minds, the small goals, and the big dreams. My sister and I often reminisce about where we came from and how proud we are that we haven’t moved back. The people age but the stories stay the same that is until this past weekend.

Saturday passed slowly at work, I felt the familiar buzz announcing a message waiting on my cell phone and I decided to take myself outdoors for an all too short escape from the job I have learned to despise so much.

Alaina, voice quiet on the message, asked that I phone her back, upon doing so I learned that a very good mutual friend had been killed earlier that morning. It seemed that he had lost an unexpected chicken contest with an elk, both of whom ended up dead somewhere on or near Highway 95 around 5am.

Work got better, the annoying whiny drawl of Americans in my ear distracted me just enough to keep the tears from shredding my throat. My weekend improved, my friends loved and fed me, I swam in Cowichan Lake and ate bacon in the rain.

To make the journey back for yet another funeral?
Alaina says “they need you,” I say “I can’t keep doing this,” Alaina says “I don’t want to go alone,” I say “I can’t afford it,” Heather says “the service will be on Friday,” James says “Just don’t. Say ‘no’ this time, you don’t owe them anything,” I say “I cried for him.”

So I stayed home from the funeral and from work, later that evening a small town phone call bends and twists the story, it seems that Troy’s friend Treck (a painfully important part of my adolescence ) hit an elk on the highway sometime before 5 am that night. He hit and killed the Elk and, for whatever legitimate or impossible reason, did not remove it from the highway.

As you can imagine, everyone in this hole little town knows everybody else, and to prevent killing each other, nearly everyone is friendly on some level, until- someone fucks with someone else’s friend. Treck and Troy were friends. Troy has many friends who lead by their hearts and their anger far more than their minds. One young man is responsible for the bizarre and accidental death of a friend, his too-sweet, big heart alone may kill him; I pray that it doesn’t. What’s more, I pray that Troy’s friends don’t either.

So this is a story very unlike any other I have heard or told about my home-town. I cannot begin to explain or understand the feelings and sensations that have gone through me this week. Both of these people are great and wonderful friends to me and I am so very, very sad for both of them.

Posted by Sheena at July 25, 2004 10:34 PM