Thoughts After Alaska

by Clayton Violand | 2009

During the winter months of November and December people living above the Arctic Circle's southern boundary are deprived of sunlight entirely. Each year the citizens of northern Alaska wait for a day in mid-November when the sun must inevitably sink to bed; it will retreat back beyond the horizon line as in the closing to a dramatic film.

In late October an Inupiat Eskimo makes his final catch of the day. His skin is wrinkled and worn like earth. He lays his discolored industry-issued fishing nets in the corner of his prized 5-by-12 steel tool shed, rooted in frozen tundra that is both desert and ice. Its structure is proud and built to last, unlike his cardboard-box-of-a-mobile-home that occupies the same lot 20 feet away.

After work is finished he goes to a bar in his faded red truck. The car is American; the bar is Alaskan which is close to American but not quite according to some, and is located just across the way from the small two-lane airport that carries in the occasional tourist, the curious scientist, and the weekly amount of airmail that delight and disrupt and shock people in their homes with tiny black letters no bigger than tiny grains of pepper. Our Eskimo likes to imagine peoples' interesting reactions when they find out about dead relatives or are informed of their eligibility to receive a brand new car or free money simply by signing up for this credit card or that magazine!

The sign above the bar says "BEER" in neon red lights. The red dusk matches his truck when he pulls in on this particular Wednesday afternoon. For two months he'll inhabit this place until his job starts up again in January. His seat is in the back and they blast the heat until you are breathing in the smell of furnace, so it's nice.

There's nothing more to know about this man. He fishes most of the year under the supervision and compensation of big industry. He drinks when he's not working. During that period of night-totality, he drinks more. He'll follow this simple pattern for 50 more years until he dies at age 84 in a hospital bed while muttering the words of his late grandfathers, his lost Alaskan tribe. His life, as it were, was a fulfilling one.

Upon death, this man became the first of our spirits. He represents honor, heritage, and the love of one's land. He is simple and sad. ‘Humbleness,' some called him.

#

Across the way in Beijing, China a well-spoken and modestly dressed city woman returns home from an 8-hour shift at a t-shirt factory. By turning American grown cotton into clothing, she's able to take care of her child. In this way she keeps her honor. And in this way she maintains her pride. In this way, she may live amongst the protection of the urban Chinese dragons and their bright red roofs.

People here speak with slanted eyes and live under slanted roofs. The roosters begin their racket at 4 a.m. Bright red angles of the downtown district make this place vibrant; the chance to be part of something– anything– keeps people sane.

Five blocks over from home, a car collides head-on with a woman on a bicycle. The woman is killed instantly.

Life goes on. Our factory worker spends her nights moon gazing with her child on the front porch of their eighth-floor shit of an apartment that breeds smells fit for a petting zoo. When the smog isn't so bad she'll say, "I love the sky tonight." Or sometimes she'll embrace her child while exclaiming, "the moon is so big!" The child will embrace back. These moments make this woman's day. These moments, which are not artificially constructed, make this woman's life.

She is our second spirit, living and breathing among us still. Some call her Sadness, Disparity, and Ruin. But she is proud, and her name is Bravery.

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In Serbia—in Belgrade—nationals set fire to the US Embassy in reaction to American support of a newly independent Kosovo. One Serbian youth second-guesses his decision as he hurls an explosive glass soda bottle through a window. For an instant he feels, and even knows, that he is out of place. But the feeling is flighty in the midst of the chaos and it comes to naught.

Later that day, he watches television and heats up a pre-cooked dinner of chicken and rice and falls asleep as unknowingly un-contented as he was before. He goes to class the next day, eventually graduating and entering corporate life.

The boy's name is Irony. He's our third spirit. He is doubt, he is falseness, and he is restlessness. But he is also called Passion.

#

In Para Cruz, Mexico, a 19-year-old boy makes a meager living for his family by pulling American tourists by cart behind his meager bicycle. He works on the boardwalk in a meager restaurant and makes meager wages. Without the English language or access to higher income, he's driven to run across the border into Arizona. He ends up in Virginia's largest town to work as a dishwasher. He waits for the day when he'll return to his beautiful yellow beaches and his beloved brown people. He misses to hell his home.

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