Emotions & Feelings
Tarksalik is about forty feet ahead of me, running by the side of the road. I can tell she's got sled-dog blood in her from the way she runs: head high, legs taut.
The sun has just come up, and when it lands on Tarksalik, it looks like she's shining too. For the first time since I found out I'd be spending this term in Nunavik, in northern Quebec, getting reacquainted with my dad, I don't feel one hundred percent miserable. Right now, as I let the fresh cold air fill my lungs, I'd say I'm down to about eighty-five percent miserable.
Maybe, I think as I watch Tarksalik run, this visit won't turn out to be a total disaster. Maybe there's more to life than Montreal.
It's around three o'clock when I hear the jingle of the bell attached to the door. I am moving boxes in the storeroom. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I walk through the doorway to the front of the store. At first, I think I'm seeing things. A ghost is coming toward the counter. It's running toward me: a skeleton covered in jaundiced skin. Quick and spastic, it has started talking before I realize it's my brother. Still, I can't stop staring at this weird and jerky marionette. There are deep hollows where his cheeks used to be and his arms—dangling from the sleeves of his T-shirt—are freakishly thin. A ripe odor makes me take a step back when he comes up close.
