When it comes to Indigenous resilience, Jen Ferguson says it's OK to go ahead and scream
This Story is Against Resilience, Supports Screaming As Needed is a short story by Jen Ferguson
This Story is Against Resilience, Supports Screaming As Needed is an original short story by Jen Ferguson. It is part of Healing, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2022 Governor General's Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts. Read more works from Healing here.
This story contains strong language.
A girl wearing a frilly pink apron bursts out of the screen door the kitchen staff keep open for air-flow even in winter. She kicks at a plastic milk crate, sending it barrelling across the alley into the side of that black vat where used oil gets stored until a big truck comes to suck it all up.
The girl pauses. Then screams. Her breath fogs the air.
The scream is bitter, rough. The kind that will hurt later.
The girl is fine with that.
The girl pauses. Then screams. Her breath fogs the air. The scream is bitter, rough. The kind that will hurt later.
Retrieving the milk crate, flipping it, she sits, tries to extract a lone cigarette lodged in her pocket. The girl is out of patience — she's just sick of being patient, of those well-meaning people calling her resilient. Every day, but especially today.
When the cigarette comes free, it breaks in half. There's too much pressure.
The girl drops the pieces at her feet.
She stews. But doesn't explode again. Enough of that.
Behind her, the screen door creaks open. "There you are, Cams. None of those jokers you work with said you were on break."
The other girl is taller. Not a girl really. Not anymore. Now that she's grown, her sister's ditched the red eyeliner she used to wear all day long. The memorial tat, the one with the sweetgrass braid, is covered by a puffy neon orange coat, like she's going off hunting.
Like she doesn't want to end up hunted.
"Well, you found me," Cami huffs, remembering why she stormed out: that word. Like it's a compliment, not another burden. Like survival is enough.
"Don't tell me that's yours?" her sister asks, all adjacent-to-sanctimonious like she didn't smoke those clove cigarettes even after the good old government turned them contraband.
"You've got exactly no cred here, eh, Tyler?"
"You're right, I don't. Who's buying for you anyhow? Who do I have to beat up?"
Cami loves being right. But it's not enough. "Thought you weren't doing that anymore?"
"I'm not. But you know I'd resurrect anytime, for you, eh?"
Cami just nods. She knows.
"So, yeah, food tonight? Jaxon's home from the rigs. Wants to have family dinner. Sent me out to buy steaks. We'll do up corn, maybe asparagus, long as it's not stringy and sad."
"It's not family dinner." Cami bites the inside of her cheek. "Jaxon's not family."
"You're in that kind of mood today. Got it. I'll just tell our stepdad, who shows up for us, constantly—"
"—when he's home!"
"—when he's not working! Yeah, I'll tell him that."
The sisters fall quiet. A truck in the parking lot struggles to turn over. Noise from the kitchen filters between them.
When they speak, it's at the same time.
"Don't. I'm only talking."
"Cams, I have news." A small white envelope emerges from a puffy orange jacket pocket. The envelope's been crushed and folded and unfolded. "I was gonna save this for dinner but… I applied. I got in."
Suddenly, Cami's relieved. It tastes like the diner's wintergreen mints. All she says, flat, is: "Edmonton's not that far."
"Actually, this one's from Tkaronto." Tyler digs into her pocket again. "And this one's from Newfoundland. And I have email yesses from UBC, McMaster, McGill. Calgary even. All of them coming through with that scholarship money."
"No shit."
It's not articulate. But it is enough.
Tyler half-smiles. "Edmonton did too, in case you're worried I'm leaving."
Cami rolls her eyes, says it all serious: "Go far away, eh?"
In the cold, the sisters' laughter turns exhaled air from a gas into a liquid—that's the science, Cami knows, but to her, it's also this tiny, needed magic.
"So family dinner tonight?"
"Dinner's good."
And sometimes — it's truth — a girl needs to step outside into the cold and do a good scream.
A mother's death anniversary. The sister who needs to leave this place. The stepdad a girl might shit on because he's the one who's still around and you can't shit on your dead mom, but your stepdad's fair game because he works hard, loves harder. All that can exist in the same moment. But so can breath turned into laughter turned magic, breath that makes anger, even this lingering anger, visible.
And sometimes — it's truth — a girl needs to step outside into the cold and do a good scream.
The inspiration
Jen Ferguson: "I was thinking a flash fiction story on the general theme of 'Shit We Shouldn't Have to Heal From' —sort of looking at the intersections of 'resilience' as burden meets colonial traumas, i.e., the shit we shouldn't have to heal from through the eyes of a teenage Native teen."
About Jen Ferguson
Jen Ferguson is a Los Angeles-based author, activist and academic of Michif/Métis and Canadian settler heritage based in Los Angeles. Ferguson has a PhD in English and creative writing. Her work includes the 2016 novel Border Markers and her essay Off Balance was featured in Best Canadian Essays 2020.
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, her debut YA novel, won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text.
About the series Healing
CBC Books asked the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award winners to contribute an original piece of writing on the theme of healing. This Story is Against Resilience, Supports Screaming As Needed was Jen Ferguson's contribution to the series.
