I’ve had a number of folks who can’t afford a subscription, request that I share my short story that is published in On Spec (#107 vol 28 no4, pages 25-28).

Before I do, I’d like to suggest that if you enjoy speculative fiction and CAN afford the subscription, you should. I’ve been subscribing now for about 10 years. 4 issues is $24, 8 issues costs $40, and you can get 12 issues for $54. On Spec comes out four times a year. I particularly appreciate that it is a local (Edmonton) based publication. You can also get single print issues while they last for $6.95 +$3 shipping, by emailing onspecmag(at)gmail.com. I love short stories, and I love having this publication show up in my mailbox!

Alright, so now that you’ve all gone out and purchased a subscription for yourself and all your friends and relations, supporting a local “Magazine of the Fantastic”, here is my story.

Dirty Wings

They are a bit grey around the puckered leather seams that attach the vamps to the soles, ôhi maskasina, these moccasins. I don’t remember seeing them before, but they fit my feet in the way only well-used moccasins can. nimaskisina cî ôhi?

I usually wear slipper moccasins in the Dene style, trimmed with beaver fur, with fully beaded vamps. Works of art for everyday use. My last few moccasins were made by Tłı̨chǫ women, glittering flowers on white backgrounds and golden, smoked moose hide that overpowered the nostrils; filled the entire house with the smell of the bush for weeks until I broke them in.

I had to pay a fine in a hotel room once after a rainy urban powwow. nimaskisina made it smell like we’d set up camp on the two king size beds, an indoor/outdoor reclamation of a place built without free, prior, and informed consent on Odawa lands. I had the windows open all night and the four of us shivered in the cold, but the wet moose hide permeated every molecule of air, infused itself into our skin and hair, into the walls even. I slept poorly, imagining the smell was visible, golden light pouring out the windows, and every neechie who looked up would know exactly what it was. I love the smell, but even I grew tired of tasting it.

During check out they made us wait until someone could look at the room; the hotel was full of Indians and I guess they were worried we drank up the mini bar. I remember the look of confusion on the concierge’s face when housekeeping called him back, trying in vain to describe a smell that seemed foreign, but belonged more than the damn hotel did. He caught a whiff off me a moment later, and his face twisted. They charged me the way they’d charge someone who smoked in the non-smoking rooms.

I’ve been waiting years for nikâwiy to make me moccasins; you’re not supposed to buy them, that’s what môniyâwak do. But no one taught nikâwiy, and every couple of years her and my aunties would try a new pattern, something from a book or described to them by a friend, giving up before finishing the pair. She’s got a bunch of left foot moccasins in different styles crammed into her craft drawers. None of them “felt right”, she’d laugh when I pulled them out and asked why she didn’t finish them.

So I bought my moccasins, and felt a little ashamed about it because they didn’t say anything about me or nikâwiy or nikâwisa or nohkom. And I bought my kids some because I’m better with words than with sewing needles; I guess I will speak when omaskisina cannot.

These ones on my feet, where did they come from? Feel like moosehide, but there’s no smell and the reinforced soles are worn, stretched to fit me perfectly. Instead of heavy duty felt vamps, it’s more leather with a boring geometric design, like something you’d see on factory made-in-China moccasins, but these were clearly hand-made. Short leather wrap-arounds too, like a high-top sneaker, just barely above the ankle, what’s the point? The leather moccasin strings were gone, replaced by black nylon combat boot laces.

I’m sitting on a couch in a common living/kitchen area. Four kookums are on high stools around the kitchen island, resting their rubber boots on a metal bar attached to the island. They wear thin windbreakers and long skirts. They’re drinking tea and patting their floral kerchiefs, talking about food. I pull off my moccasins and start spreading mashed avocado inside them with my fingers. It’s time consuming work, I have to do it right.

I’m living in an Indigenous dorm at the University of amiskwaciwâskahikan. I’m in a program with a small cohort and the kookums are talking about the young men. We only have a certain amount of money each month for food, and the Elders decided to give it to the men. The kookums are laughing about what aniki nâpêwak have been buying with that money, fancy breads from artisanal bakeries, and aged cold cuts. They laugh uproariously about the spring water in glass bottles in the fridge.

I wonder why we don’t just eat ramen noodles like every other student. I know how to stretch it out, making ‘soup bombs’ you can throw when the noodles are cooked, pieces of meat and lots of vegetables you freeze in small batches for when you need them, it’s basically a full meal. I can teach them, I think to myself. We can sew soup bombs into cleaned buffalo intestines.

My fingers stay busy. The kookums are pulling on their short pipes now, little puffs of tobacco drifting like cotton candy, sticking to the ceiling, becoming clouds. The men will be out of money soon, far too soon into the month, and that means we’ll all go hungry. I’m not hungry yet, but the suggestion makes my stomach clench. Lasting lessons are hard on everyone.

The men are back, braids but no faces, laying loaves of bread on the kitchen island, proud of themselves. They kiss the hands of the kookums and I’m not angry anymore. It will be okay. I slide the moccasins back on, tie them tight.

We are sitting in a circle outside in the quad. The sun is so bright and so high, we are sitting on our own shadows. A môniyâw, a white man, stands outside our circle and when his mouth moves I hear wings flapping. Not eagle wings mind you, not even raven wings. Dirty pigeon wings and I feel ashamed I don’t honour the pigeon. It didn’t build the cities, it just adapted. Maybe even better than we did.

Or maybe exactly how we did.

We are pulling spruce root up through the grass, laying it in front of us in coils. Dirty wings, dirty wings. Somehow I understand he is mocking us, saying our program is just “underwater basketweaving”. We don’t do that, but I think it might be fun. That one, môniyâw ana, in his 19th century hipster beard, he just wants us to know he thinks what we do is useless. Arts and crafts at best. I bet he studies poli sci.

The four kookums wrestle themselves to their feet, it’s hard for them, knees creaking like abandoned gates blowing in the wind. They stretch out their arms in front of them, then bend them so their hands are touching their own shoulders. Their elbows are sharp and I’m confused; the kookums aren’t blind. They push that one, ana môniyâw, poking him with their elbows when he seems reluctant to move.

We all stand and follow the kookums. We are in a building with a large pool. The water lies in shadows, a shade of green like spruce boughs. There are cattails obscuring its size and in a few places you can see all the way to the bottom. We usually bring our canoes here but not today.

The kookums elbow that môniyâw into the pool. He falls and drags all the cattails down with him like pulling on a tablecloth, until the pool is clear and blue and you can see him just sitting there on the bottom, looking up in confusion. The kookums throw him coils of spruce root and tell him he can come out when he has woven a basket.

He doesn’t even try. He swells up a little, his skin is becoming puffy and flecks of his clothes start floating to the top of the water. We watch his skin come off in patches. Soon the whole surface of the pool is covered in soggy leaves.

The men take their woven spruce root baskets and skim the leaves out of the water. The men are silent but the rest of us are singing. The kookums are sitting, puffing on their pipes again, but these are the longer pipes, the women’s pipes.

I gather the waterlogged leaves up in my hands, there are so many, they keep falling and I have to pick them up again. I am outside and it is the dead of winter. I have to take these leaves and spread them under the trees in the University quad. I cannot see the sky, it is getting dark and snow is falling, thick, wet and heavy all around me.

I risk freezing to death, but my feet are warm. I am glad I took the time to spread the avocado inside, my feet are coated as though with bear grease. I find a patch of waskwayak and I remember how once they were whipped by Elder Brother. It is winter, why can’t I remember his name? I lay those leaves down, no more flapping wings.

I am ready for the coming fast.

Reviews of the story

There have been two reviews already of my story and of other stories in this volume of On Spec! You can find all the reviews in Tangent.

The first review is amazing/hilarious, and the second sort of “gets it” a little more, but both tell their own truths, intentional or not.

• Reviewed by Jason McGregor

The protagonist spends much of these four pages, which are not “speculative” as much as “surreal,” talking about shoes. The story includes many undefined regional words and untranslated non-English phrases and may be about pre-Europeans struggling with assimilation.

• Reviewed by Geoff Houghton

“Dirty Wings” by Chelsea Vowel is a flow of consciousness from a Native American living on the edge of mainstream Canadian society. The author is plainly familiar with this Native culture and uses many native words, although their approximate meaning can usually be deduced from the context.

This is speculative fiction rather than SF. The writing style is idiosyncratic and there is no conventional plot. Instead the reader leaves behind common or garden Western World certainties and is drawn into an alternative way to view our Universe. If you believe that reality is reality is reality and what we see is what we get, then pass this story by. If you are less certain in your metaphysics, then you may wish to enter this alternative way of seeing the world through eyes not automatically attuned to Western Capitalist and Materialist values.

I mean, I’d love to hear your thoughts/opinions as well, feel free to leave them in the comments!

– your favourite “pre-European”