#* our saviour has risen ! ( interactions. )

[taxiarchaos-blog]

michael  stands,  heeled  boots  sounding  on  the  hard  floor  beneath  as  he  moves  closer  and  circles  her  chair,  slow  and  deliberate,  a  slender  hand  grazing  across  the  tops  of  her  shoulders.  he  almost  laughs  at  her  words,  only  allowing  a  short  huff  to  part  his  lips. 

“ oh,  i  don’t  want  anything.  not  from  you.  i  just  want  you  to  sit  there  and  watch,  helpless,  as  the  world  burns  before  you. ”

@fearduath  /  cont.

[kootenaygoon]

So,

No matter how idyllic life was during the summer of 2014, there were plenty of people struggling to survive in Nelson. 

The lumber mill had shuttered in the 80s, around three decades before my arrival, but no reliable industry had even risen up to replace it. Though the black market cannabis industry kept certain parts of the population afloat, others were forced to innovate, move away or slip into poverty. The people who remained were talking more and more about the “affordable housing crisis”, funnelling their money towards a local charity called Nelson CARES and calling for action at the city council level. People were working two or three jobs just to make rent. 

Outside of town was the trailer park, tucked back into the trees, where the marginalized had been living for over a century according to one of the articles I read by Greg. And down even further on the social ladder were the people living in a tent encampment outside the city limits, a few dozen of them, many of them with seasonal jobs at local hotels or restaurants. The small patch of forest had collected a tribe of transients, maybe a dozen tents, and more trash and human waste than could be easily dealt with. Every year Dooley oversaw the mass eviction of its residents, and when it happened that summer Calvin sent me down to Our Daily Bread soup kitchen to see if I could interview some of the people who’d lost their makeshift homes.

After introducing myself to the pastor running the operation, Jim Reimer, he pointed out some of the people I was looking for. I ended up sitting on the sidewalk outside with a 29-year-old dude named Adam Hutchison. He was wearing a green John Deere baseball cap, board shorts and a Metal Mulisha tank top featuring an ominous-looking silhouetted skull on the left breast. He kept his beard closely trimmed, his septum was pierced and he spent most of our conversation hiding behind a cheap-looking pair of baby blue sunglasses.

“I don’t really look like a homeless person, right?” he said, with an uncomfortable laugh. 

Adam leaned heavily against the brick wall, looking semi-conscious. His dog Duke was contentedly sleeping beside an overloaded backpack, complete with a battered-looking Nalgene hanging from a clip and a soiled sleeping bag rolled up in the top.

“I slept beside the highway last night,” he told me, knuckling his tired eyes. “I was afraid to put my tent up because I didn’t want them to take it.”

I spent five minutes talking to Adam, listening to the story of his eviction, and then took his picture. He asked me if I could send him a copy, so I told him how to find my new Facebook account. Afterwards, as I was looking through the images, I asked him about Duke.

“Aw, Duke’s fine. He’s a big guy, he loves it. He chases deer, bear,” Adam said, scratching at Duke’s neck scruff. 

“I don’t have kids, so it’s kind of like he’s my kid, you know?”

I knew exactly what he was talking about, because that was how I felt about Muppet and Buster. We were both reasonably healthy blond Canadian dudes, the same age, but I had a house and he didn’t. He’d left a lucrative job somewhere in Alberta when his girlfriend “kidnapped” Duke and took him to Vancouver Island. When he pleaded with his boss for a few days off to retrieve his canine progeny, he was given two options: quit or give up on the dog. He chose the former. By the time he met me, Adam had been living in the Kootenays for four months, trying to scrabble together enough money by picking cherries in Osoyoos and washing dishes in Nelson. As I turned to head home for lunch, where I knew Paisley was waiting with a meal prepared, it occurred to me that it was within my power to help him. This guy was standing right in front of me, within arm’s reach, and it wouldn’t take much to shove a hand in my pocket and produce a fistful of change. I felt that instinctual, gut-level kick of guilt that makes you feel like you just chugged Pepsi on an empty stomach. But I successfully ignored it. My mind instinctively compiled a lengthy list of reasons/excuses why I didn’t need to care about Adam’s problems.

“Good luck with everything,” I said. Then I left.

The interaction bothered me, though, the same way seeing homelessness up close has always bothered me. When I was a kid, I was always trying to convince my Mom to give money to panhandlers. In high school I created an imaginary dream home in which I offered shelter to the entire homeless population of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. I grew up Christian, and spent some time working with the homeless through our church youth group. Though I’d lost my faith by the time I got to Nelson, I hadn’t lost my empathy — and it was telling me I should’ve, could’ve done more. Eventually I decided that the first step would be to write a column, the type of thing that would make people consider the homelessness situation in a new light, and I called my little jeremiad “Looking for an excuse not to care”.

“I’ve interviewed approximately 15 homeless or nearly homeless Nelson residents over the course of the last month, and without fail all of them have made decisions that have contributed to their circumstances,” I wrote.

“They’ve made bad decisions, irresponsible decisions and unfathomable decisions. One woman bankrupted herself with credit card debt. One man I chatted with spends his time collecting returnables to feed a heavy cigarette addiction. Others can’t maintain employment due to substance abuse. Mental illness is readily apparent everywhere. But does that mean we’re allowed to not care? Does that give us an excuse to check out, morality-wise?”

This was a question I was beginning to ask myself in reference to a number of different stories I was covering for the Star, whether I was writing about a horrifying golf course plane crash or the mental health crisis — how much was I supposed to engage? How deeply was I supposed to feel other people’s pain? And if I could somehow translate that pain into readable journalism, what would that accomplish? Whether I wrote about Adam or not, the dude was going to be homeless. And even if I skillfully captured the realities of homelessness, it didn’t mean anything was going to change. For years I’d idolized this profession, after two life-changing summer stints at the Whitehorse Star, but now I was pondering the futile aspects of the whole enterprise. Could storytelling really change people’s minds, I wondered? Could the articles being produced at this small-town paper make a real difference? Or was I just taking myself way too seriously? With my slippers up on the railing of my porch, I took deep tokes from my pipe and watched the pot smoke curl into the leaves hanging overhead. Before I lost my Christian faith as a teenager I’d wanted to be a youth pastor, to spend my life proselytizing, and there was a similar self-righteous bent to the whole journalism thing. Paisley laughed as I monologued, and took the pipe when I passed it.

“Somewhere deep down you’re still that little Christian kid,” she said. “You’ve got the worst saviour complex I’ve ever seen.”

The Kootenay Goon

[taxiarchaos-blog]

her words make more than enough sense but still they provide no comfort, not after everything he’d been through. the only thing that knocks him for six, makes him forget for just a second is the warm grip on his jaw, just a touch of the physical contact he’d craved for so long. she’s here now, in front of him, shouldn’t that be all that mattered?

“ i DID. i fought them, but you abandoned me. they all abandoned me. ” it’s hard to let it go, and michael wipes away the tear that threatens to fall as he pulls back and turns away from her. “ i just... kept killing and killing and no one understood why. not even me. ” he gets it now, but was it really worth the cost of his family? he paces back and forth, frustrated, and it shows in his voice as he rambles. “ i’m a monster and i KNOW that’s what i’m supposed to be but it destroyed me. the woman who raised me killed herself because of me. you WATCHED me struggle and suffer. i needed you. ”

@crimscnmalice   /   cont.

[taxiarchaos-blog]

“ i heard you the first time. ”

“ and it’s polite to reply. ”  michael leans back, crosses one leg over the other as he watches the other man traipse about.  “ you don’t want to be here and i don’t want you here,  but for some godforsaken reason my father decided it’s for the best.  so, for efficiency, do try to work on your communication skills.  that’s all i ask. ” 

@creatingxdragons​  /  ahs

[taxiarchaos-blog]

what’s wrong  —  pvris  /  @sisterscorned

          “ Forget the poems of saints and ghosts,  I’m the one I fear the most. ”

[taxiarchaos-blog]

“ tell me who you really are. ”

@sixwonders  /  sc.

[taxiarchaos-blog]

     “ they abandoned you, ” it comes out as a statement, though it’s more of a question. madison’s eagerness to come with him, compared to queenie’s hesitation, told him everything he needed to know  —  instead of one of them trying to retrieve the blonde from hell and failing, no one had come at all. there was a darkness about her, nothing close to evil, but some type of unrelenting force desperate for power and control, something that must’ve given them a reason to think they were better off leaving madison where she was. “ what did you do? ”

@sixwonders

[taxiarchaos-blog]

“ I don’t know why you won’t just tell me where we’re going. ”

@redarrovv  /  sc.

[taxiarchaos-blog]

blood in the cut  —  k.flay  /  @redjackettm​

          “ It’d be safest if you ran. Fuck, that’s what they all just end up doing in the end. ”

[taxiarchaos-blog]

❛ don’t touch me! ❜ || u already know

          it’s an innocent touch,  palm resting lightly between her shoulder blades,  but at her words it’s yanked away as if he’d been BURNED,  fist clenched and covered by his other hand.  she’s loud and angry and it’s an outburst michael never expected.   “   i’m sorry,  i didn’t —  i didn’t think you’d mind,   ”   she’d never given him warning before,  never shied away from him the times they’d accidentally made contact in the past.  so what was DIFFERENT this time ?   “   you haven’t done that before and i  ——  I’M SORRY.   ”

three words  /  @redintegrare

[taxiarchaos-blog]

“ i won’t let them kill you. ” ( michael )

         THE SENTIMENT IS APPRECIATED,  and as always it’s VALIDATING to know that there’s another person by his side,  but he couldn’t let another one of his allies die for him.  “ thank you, ”  michael smiled,  a gentle hand on her arm squeezing slightly before letting go, “ but they won’t get the CHANCE.  it’s coming sooner than they think.  the sun will fall from the sky and the heavens will BURN,  and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. ”

outlast  /  @redjackettm

[taxiarchaos-blog]

❛ never open a magic box if you do not know what’s inside it. ❜ ( for michael! )

“ BUT HOW WILL I KNOW WHAT’S INSIDE OF IT IF I DON’T OPEN IT ? ” it’s a genuine question and michael huffs in frustration, blue hues darting between the box and minerva. the box sits patiently, mockingly, in his palm and he holds it up in offering. “ can’t YOU open it? ”

@crimscnmalice  /  a meme from an eternity ago

[taxiarchaos-blog]

“Do you feel anything?” || millory

          do you feel anything ?  what kind of question was that ?   “   i feel   EVERYTHING.   ”   he felt the blood on his hands,  the jolts of their body as they   CHOKED   and then the slowing rise and fall of their chest.  michael gained nothing from it,  and yet he couldn’t stop.  he turns his head and wipes the tears covering his face on the sleeve of his shirt before sending the most   PITIFUL   look at mallory.   “   ———   i need   HELP.   ”

too lazy to look for the meme  /  @redintegrare

[taxiarchaos-blog]

‘ you’re not tired. you’re afraid. ’ (To Michael)

     ❛ you don’t know anything about me, ❜  he’s both.  exhausted,  because try as he might,  it seemed impossible to bring the world to it’s knees.  afraid,  abandoned and alone.  other people telling him what he was and what he wasn’t seemed like a running theme ever since he’d been born,  yet they were never actually willing to help. ❛ i’m not looking for advice.  leave me alone. ❜

first blood  /  @blueinfinitum

[taxiarchaos-blog]

          michael throws his head back with a roll of his eyes,  a low groan escaping his throat,    “   god,  you’re   EXHAUSTING,   ”    warm hands slide down her arms,  intertwine with her fingers and turn palms upwards,  blue hues watching veins   THRIVE,    “   do try to see the positives,  at least.   you gave me your soul in exchange for   POWER   and peace for your sisters,  and now that i’ve given you that,  you do nothing but complain.   ”

@redintegrare  /  cont.

[taxiarchaos-blog]

“Wait, you’re banging him, too?” || you already know who this is from & who it is to

          “   TOO ?  god,  no.   ”   he can’t help but laugh at the thought,  incredulous,  and michael reclines back,  one leg crossed over the other,  book resting in his lap.   “   the only person in this room with bad taste is YOU,  mallory.  i’m insulted you’d even imply that.  i’m not a fan of SLOPPY SECONDS.   ”

ahs  /  @redintegrare