It was just after midday, the sun was positioned high in the sky, scalding my sensitive, unprotected, blindingly pale skin. There were many clouds in the sky but none were forgiving enough to block the sun out, not even just for a little while. I was being cooked alive. My skin was likely to start bubbling and cracking soon, but I soldiered on.
I hopped off my silver 2013 Ford F-150 model horse into the long, bug-infested grass. There was cow excrement here and there, and it took very thought-out steps to get around the dangerous land mines of dried shit piles. Luckily I made it out with all my toes in place and my ankles still wholly connected to my legs. The bugs swarmed at the sight of me, thirsty for the blood that was flowing just beneath my skin. Their incessant buzzing was all I could hear; for a moment I thought I’d gone into some sort of deaf trance. I took out my weapon of choice, Off! bug spray, and I gassed those little fuckers before they could sink their poison suckers into my flesh. Not today, you unnecessary dick-holes, not today.
The water was flowing fast and dangerous at the old creek that day. It was a wonder that the slab of cement serving as a bridge didn’t break up and float away. It provided a lovely soundtrack of rushing water for my file of recordings aptly titled “Sound Effects to Use at the Most Unnecessary of Times”, however. I knew it would come in handy when someone said they really had to pee and we still had a whole hour of driving to do before we were anywhere near a toilet. Simply play that over the speakers and their bladder would be toast. Oh, yes, it was an excellent plan.
After recording what I needed I gazed out at the white-capped waters as they roared this way and that, creating swirling vortexes of lost hope and riptides straight from hell. That was when I saw it: the twenty-foot across dorsal fin of a Great White Shark, right here in the dusty plains of Canada, wouldn’t you know it! Never being one to shy away from an adventure, I decided to get closer to the circling water beast. The only way to do that without falling into the perilous waters and sacrificing myself to it was to climb over mountains. So climb I did, until my ankles were scratched and bloody and I’d made friends with a few mountain goats along the way. Finally, I was an arm’s breadth away from the edge of the deep, dark, deadly water. The beast kept circling and circling, faster and faster, and it took all I had not to let my crimson essence drip into the waters, for I knew that would draw it to me. Unfortunately, my attempts were in vain. I meant to move back, only just a little, but my foot slipped out from under me, sending a sprinkling of blood into the shark-infested creek. And that was all it took for the great monster to stop its circling and rush me, leaping out of the water intending to devour me whole. When I saw its great jaws open wide and its rows upon rows of jagged teeth coming straight for me, I took out my Off! bug spray, and I gassed that motherfucker like the dirty jock strap it was. It choked and flipped, landing half in the water and half out, before the tribe of beavers arrived and salvaged bits of shark flesh to feed their hungry little fluffballs back in their stick dens. In Canada, one can always count on the beavers to save the day.
Having fulfilled my quota of near death experiences and awesome Instagram shots for the day, I left that place behind for a new frontier, one that would prove to be just as dangerous as the last. The great desert of my homeland was one no one dared to enter willingly, but I was no pussy (cat). The sand was actually quicksand, and the second I took the keys out of my horse and stepped out I was swallowed almost up to my ankle, but I managed to free myself in time to leap to the nearest flat stone, where I sat to plan my next move. Luckily in Canada we always have snowshoes on hand, which also happen to be great for walking across quicksand as well as junkie street in downtown Vancouver, or so I’ve heard. I strapped those unfashionable flat clown shoes onto my flip-flops and stepped out onto the deadly landscape. I found bones of a dead buffalo lying nearby, and I wondered briefly if my skeleton would be next to join the horde. The sun was making me melt and I had nothing to shade myself with. While I was worrying about the sanctity of my own being, that was when I heard it: a loud, thunder-like growling right in front of me. I looked up and there it was: the largest, mangiest, nastiest looking coyote I’d ever seen. I gulped. I’d never faced one that big before. All it had to do was pounce and it’d have me. With the snowshoes strapped to my feet, I’d be too clumsy to run away in time. I kept myself very, very still as the coyote lowered itself, peeling its upper lip back to show me a row of sharp teeth that longed for my flesh. I looked down just for a moment and there I found my saviour: a sharp relic of the past known as an arrowhead. I knew the First Men of this land used them to hunt and kill their own prey, so it was exactly what I needed. Very slowly, while maintaining eye contact with the nasty beast, I used the tip of my snowshoe to remove the hundreds of years old artefact from its dusty, sandy tomb, and flip it up into the air for me to catch expertly in my palm. It cut me only a little, where the softest of flesh and tissue were, and I knew then that it would serve me well. The great monster leapt at me, much like the shark had, opening its spit-filled cavern of a snarling mouth. It almost got me, too. If I had acted only a millisecond later, I fear I would not be writing this memoir down. But with one hard thrust upward, the stone bit into the chest of the coyote, digging into its sour heart and causing blood to seep out down my arm. It looked at me with shock in its great yellow eyes before collapsing at my feet, causing the ground to shake. I watched the bloodlust vanish from its face and it began to whine like a lost puppy. Now, I may be a deadly adventurer who fears nothing, but that does not mean I am not capable of compassion. I knelt down by its great furry head, ashamed at what I had done. Its large pink tongue flicked out to lick at my fingers, as if it were saying goodbye. I began to weep and as great grey clouds shut off the sky to weep with me, I screamed “NO!” up at them, begging them to salvage this being that lay dying in front of me. All it did was pour rain, as it always does when something sad happens (seriously, pay attention next time you watch a Disney movie, or any movie where sad things happen for that matter. It ALWAYS starts to rain. Like what the hell we get it it’s sad but it can be sad and sunny too y’know. Have you ever gone for ice cream in the summer only to find out the place is out or closed? Yeah, case and point, bitch) and the moisture did nothing to save the coyote. It did cool it off, however, and it died peacefully before being consumed by the quicksand. The earth was hungry for flesh and blood, but as I stood up on my trusty snowshoes, wiped the tears and rain from my face and glared down at it, I muttered five words in response to its murderous self:
“Not today, motherfucker. Not today.”
(Side note: all these things actually happened. Just ask my 5 year old niece, she’ll tell you it did, she was there)
(Side side note: Okay maybe it didn’t happen like I said but I did go to the creek and on a mini archaeology adventure. I encourage you all to embrace nature and view things like a 5 year old would—it can be liberating sometimes, and it’s always beautiful. Except when giant sharks and coyotes come along and fuck your shit up. Then you might just have to gas a motherfucker with your bug spray. Hey, it happens. I get it)
