Strange Children of the Sour Gas

STRANGE CHILDREN OF THE SOUR GAS

by EC Dorgan

(Content warnings: death, implied sexual violence, animal abuse, environmental horror)

I rise with my sisters every evening when the light shifts and the aspen leaves shimmer. Rumbling softly at first, then roaring. By the time we’re standing, the trees are so deafening the ground vibrates. Though, we barely feel it. In 1982, when we were born, the earth blew open and tectonic plates reassembled. The flames reached forty metres high. 

We’re red-haired and iridescent-eyed. We wave and sway like flames. Only some people see us, but they all know our sulphur smell. In another time, they’d call us devils. But now they mistake us for rotten eggs or skunks under porches. We like porches, too. Trees and beasts hate us. They know our poison nature.

Tonight there’s a beast in front of me. It found me under its porch, and now it’s suspicious. I bring my fingers to my face and say “Oh.” Its coal eyes flash and it stiffens. It knows I’m no skunk. It’s smarter than the two-legged fool who calls it “Monty.”

Its name isn’t Monty, though it answers to those syllables. It barks its name, a particular stink I can’t fathom. Closes its jowls and leans forward to sniff, but I step backwards. I have no name to share, it’s my birth that defines me. Me and my sisters are strange children, born of a violent labour. We’re legion here, in oil and gas country.

•••

Days pass. We come to a strange peace. Now Particular stink watches but doesn’t bark at me. When I come out from under the porch, it’s already waiting. Sometimes it tilts its head at me.

But I’m wary. I don’t take my eyes off Particular stink—that’s why one evening when I rise under a darkening sky, I don’t see the demon stalking me. I spin round and it hisses. Opens its yellow eyes wide and lowers to its haunches, preparing to pounce. I bring my hands to my face, there’s no time to say “Oh.”

The demon leaps and I blow a poison breath at it. It contorts itself in the air and my breath sails by harmlessly. The demon lands and launches a second time. Its claws are aimed at my face. I can’t move, I deflate.

The next thing I know, Particular stink’s racing toward me. Wind ripples as it rushes past—the demon does a somersault in the air, yowls, and flees. Particular stink gives chase and I collapse onto the ground, breathless.

Later my rescuer stands in front of me, wagging its tail and barking its name. The two-legged fool steps out on the porch and yells, “Monty!” and the beast follows him into the house. I put my hands on my cheeks and say “Oh” while the moon rises above me.

•••

I didn’t always live under this porch. I’ve drifted, porch to porch, over the years. Me and my sisters were born in Lodgepole, southwest of the city. Our birth was the biggest sour gas blow-out in the province’s history. The fire burned for sixty-eight days. Some of my sisters were thrown to Manitoba, but most stayed here, in Alberta.

At first, all we could do was put our hands on our cheeks and sway. We flailed, passive, the shifting wind giving shape to our flitting forms. We sickened cattle, discoloured cars. We were gases, but over time we manifested. Now we mark the landscape, corroding what we touch. 

We’ve learned over the years to control our breath. Developed hobbies, like the giant mall in the west of the city. We rush through the corridors, taking in the waterpark and the pirate ship, stopping to watch the amusement park rides. The mall used to be the world’s biggest, but now it’s almost too small. There are so many of us, we can’t distinguish our Wranglers from our sisters’. We don’t dare exhale for fear of sickening shoppers and turning everything to rust.

We see new sisters, too. They’re smaller than us and wispier in form. When we pass them in the mall, they’re oblivious. They don’t have hobbies. They don’t know what they are or where they came from. Each one means a tragedy and a corporate lie. They shouldn’t exist, but we don’t speak of their birth or their history. We look forward, not back, in oil and gas country. 

As for the two-legged ones, they ignore us. They could see us if they wanted, but most are wilfully blind. The mall is where we’re most invisible, we can’t compete with the dazzle of new products. I can relate—there was a time when I liked malls and shiny things. But now I’m tired of my sisters’ company, of days and years holding my breath pointlessly in mall hallways. 

I’ve learned to drive. I know the transmission, the gas pedal. The indicator lights are my favourite. I like to pull down the front visor and look at myself while I accelerate, admiring my flame-coloured hair, my oily skin, my glistening eyes.

The men in red pick-ups always see me. Sometimes they honk and wave. It gives me a thrill. I put my hands to my cheeks and smile at them. I drive in circles on the Henday, listening to old-time country, while they follow, winking their lights at me. When I run out of gas, I pull over to the side. It only takes a few breaths into the gas tank to restart the engine. Though lately, even driving doesn’t satisfy me.

I want there to be more to my existence than swaying and bringing my hands to my cheeks. I’m not like my sisters, I’m lonely. Some days, instead of saying “Oh,” I want to scream.

•••

One night there’s a storm and I huddle under the porch, shaking. I’d dig myself back into the earth if she would take me. But my mother hates her daughters, we split her hips with our birth. The sound of thunder reminds me. I don’t have the courage to raise my hands to my cheeks. I’m too scared to sway with the lightning.

The light changes and I shudder, imagining the storm’s come to extinguish me. I shouldn’t have been born, but I don’t want this to be the end of me. I open my eyes and something glints in the darkness. I sniff and the smell of wet fur wallops me, dank and fetid: a particular stink. 

I gasp and say “Oh.” My shaking hands touch my cheeks. I finally comprehend the beast’s name and it wags its tail at me. 

It storms all night and there’s no end to the thunder. Lightning flashes through the porch slats. But I’m not scared, for once, I’m not lonely. The particular reek of that beast permeates the air. I take care not to breathe on it. Particular stink wiggles its bum and snuggles against me.

•••

I’d call Particular stink a friend but I know better—friendship isn’t for my kind. I learned the hard way twenty years ago. I was young and naive. I thought the world was gentler, that a car could be a friend to me. There was one that whooshed by daily. Sometimes it slowed or flashed its lights. 

I swayed and jumped out in front of it. It smashed into me and my hips exploded. It was like the earth throes that birthed and rejected me. There was nothing around me, no sound. No one came to help. I lay on the ground for hours, feeling the earth rumble with distant fracking. Now I know cars are for driving, not befriending.

I tried next with a two-legged one. I met him outside the mall, he could see me. I felt something when he fixed his eyes on me. I liked the sensation—no one had ever really looked at me, especially not here. When I approached him, he smiled at me. He said he was a roughneck. I wanted to tell him that I knew about the industry. He touched my hair. “You look like flame.” I put my hands to my cheeks and said, “Oh.” 

He called me an odd bird and invited me to his trailer. We went inside and he pushed me down onto his sofa. It reminded me of the car and I said no. He hit me. So I showed him what I could do. 

I watched the next day from a distance while people in uniforms picked up the pieces of him, then people from the gas company came with their sensors. They called it a venting incident and blamed it on the propane tank in his trailer. Fools. If they only knew.

•••

I spend days with Particular stink. It puts its nose into holes and licks its bum. It eats poo. One day we find a dead bird and Particular stink rolls in it. I put my hands to my cheeks and say “Oh,” but Particular stink looks at me like I should try it too.

Particular stink keeps the demon away, but it’s beholden to the brute who calls it Monty. He’s cruel. Some days, he doesn’t feed Particular stink. It wags its tail at him anyway. One day Particular stink barks at the demon to keep it from stalking me. The two-legged jerk picks up the demon and it purrs. He turns around and kicks Particular stink in the belly. Particular stink whimpers. I open my mouth and say “Oh, oh, oh.” The jerk doesn’t see or hear me. 

When I gather my wits, I walk, swaying, until I’m inches from his face and I blow my biggest poison breath right into his nostrils. The two-legged fool sways and rubs his eyes. He doubles over, nauseous. Too bad my sisters aren’t here, together we could breathe a lethal dose. I could blow him up too, but I don’t need more investigations about “venting incidents.” Don’t want to risk hurting Particular stink. 

Particular stink limps away, tail between its legs. I walk behind it, trying to control my orange rage. Particular stink comes to a dead bird in the yard and doesn’t sniff it. Its tail drags. The demon hisses at us, and Particular stink lowers its head. My pent-up anger stretches against my form, and my vision pulses bronze and amber. It’s not fair. I want to burst, instead I make myself slowly exhale.

I steal the jerk’s car to cool my temper. Drive for two days in circles on the Henday with the same song on repeat. I only stop to blow into the gas tank. I let my flame hair out of the windows, but still my breath is too hot. The car overheats on the third day. I turn off the Henday and drive through a canola field. Try to calm myself watching flarestack flames from distant refineries. I take off my cowboy boots and push my toes into the ground, but the earth still rejects me.

It’s dark when I return to the porch. I climb underneath and Particular stink plonks down beside me. Its stomach growls and I know that fool didn’t feed it. The yellow-eyed demon watches us through the porch slats and I blow a puff of poison air at it. 

Particular stink’s still limping the next night. Its ribs are starting to protrude. My anger surges and I make myself sway to calm down. I wish I could help Particular stink. There’s a storm, and we huddle back-to-back while the porch shudders with every thunderclap. Particular stink’s stomach rumbles. I hate its suffering.

I don’t have food, all I can offer is my birth story. Can only hope it provides the beast with some sustenance. Even my younger sisters don’t know it, I haven’t told this to anyone.

“The world was sulphurous. There were so many colours in the rocks and the gases. Every night, the continental plates sang. Me and my sisters looked up through narrow crevasses between tectonic plates at dancing gases, reds, burgundies, and blues. We shifted and swayed to the flickering colours, and when we looked down, we saw a universe in each rock, a starless expanse without ending, an explosion of worlds and possibilities.

“Then the well blew. We burst out with fire and so much hydrogen sulphide no one could breathe and even trees couldn’t survive us. We poisoned the air for thousands of kilometres. Sickened people, killed birds.

“I still remember the shock of this ugly surface. Here orange is orange, there are no galaxies of shifting colours, no rocks that contain all creation. There were so many gradations of scents and gases in those depths. Like all of us children, the first thing I did was try to dig back down. But the earth wouldn’t take us. Nothing would.” 

I look at Particular stink—it doesn’t understand a word I said. But it likes my voice. It’s the first time I haven’t said “Oh.” We lean into each other and fall asleep.

•••

I rise to the shimmer of poplar leaves, but something’s wrong, the two-legged jerk is screaming. The horizon shifts, and I rush up to the porch to stand beside Particular stink. The fool doesn’t see me. He shrieks and his face turns red like a pick-up truck.

He tells Particular stink it’s stupid and that it will pay for its actions. I blink, trying to comprehend, and the jerk spells it out for me. Particular stink ate his chicken dinner. I want to scream at the fool, what did he think, these last days not feeding the creature?

He makes a fist and punches the wall. Particular stink cowers and lowers its head. There’s a flash of movement in the house and I see the demon, tiptoeing across the kitchen table. It’s watching us with gloating eyes while it eats the stolen chicken.

The brute punches the wall a second time, and I put my hands to my cheeks because I know what’s coming. I want to protect Particular stink but I’m helpless. The jerk has metal-plated boots. Dread overwhelms me. 

He raises his leg and I say “Oh”—the next thing I know there’s a thunk and Particular stink is flying. It lands on the grass with a thud. For a moment it doesn’t move, then the sound of its yelp kills me. I watch, heart breaking, while it runs to the trees, whimpering.

The fool is looking straight at me. He doesn’t want to see. I can’t hold in my rage and don’t want to, either. With the roughneck, it was a “venting incident.” This will be something of another magnitude. This will be like my birthday.

I let him have it.

•••

We don’t spend the night under the porch after that. There’s no porch to huddle under. No house either, only a charred crater, corroded metal, and floating tufts of insulation. We retreat to the trees, and I blow my poison into squirrels until they fall dizzy and red-eyed from branches, and Particular stink eats them while they’re still in a daze.

There are police. Investigations. They call it a freak gas leak. It’s a danger in oil and gas country, all these abandoned oil wells, all this sour gas drilling. Eventually, Particular stink stops limping. I can’t see its ribs. When we find dead birds, Particular stink rolls in them. One day I try it and discover I like it, too.

But nothing’s that simple. Investigators—insurance, fire, police—are there every day. They’re noisy, we can’t sleep. And sometimes they try to catch Particular stink. We know better than to trust them. One day, we see the demon, skulking in what used to be the kitchen. Of course it escaped the explosion.

Sometimes we watch the investigators, but mostly we roll in things. One of the investigators has a pick-up, it’s red and shiny. I can’t stop looking at it. It comes again the next morning while me and Particular stink are rolling in poo. I look at the beast and its coal eyes flash. 

Instead of “Oh,” I say, “What do you think?”

Particular stink sits and lifts a paw—that’s answer enough for me. There’s a sandwich and water bottle in the back of the truck. I feed them to Particular stink. It feels good to be back in the driver’s seat. Particular stink rides shotgun. 

We start down the road, and one of the investigators comes after us. But I know how to drive, I shift the transmission and play with the indicators. We lose him easily. I fiddle with the radio and find a country station. I look to see if Particular stink likes country, but the beast isn’t looking at me—its head is out the window, tongue sticking out. It likes driving even more than rolling in things. 

My hair flies red out the window. I don’t go too fast, don’t want the engine to overheat. Turn onto a back road, then pick up speed. The sky opens up like I’ve never seen, and all the gases expand within me. I feel free, not so contained.

•••

We stop in a canola field so Particular stink can pee. It sniffs the crops and finds a dead mouse. We take turns rolling in it. We stop at a store and I steal a sandwich for Particular stink. It wags its tail and jumps into the truck. I watch it eat. Particular stink finishes the sandwich, it liked the cheese. I get into the truck and shift the transmission.

Particular stink farts as soon as we start driving. I have a feeling it’s the first of many. Aspens shimmer on both sides of the road and every Hank Williams song speaks to me. We’re two odd birds, two strange children—we don’t need to stop, I can breathe into the gas tank. We’ll outrun the investigators, the demons, even. 

As for my sisters… I sense their presence. They’re never far. Even in the truck, I feel the rumbling beneath us, the violent heaves of the earth birthing new siblings. We’ll never stop being born, and our mother will never love us. There’s no escaping what we are. This is oil and gas country—we permeate this landscape. Our breath is everywhere. 

I say “Oh.” I don’t want to think about it. My friend farts again and I shake my head. That cheese. I play with the indicators. The next Hank Williams song comes on and I keep driving.