Bitumen, the short story that inspired the novel, is third place winner in the PrairieFire fiction competition judged by Michael Winter. It was published in Summer 2009.
Excerpt:
Fort McMurray is the end of the road. You can’t drive farther north from here. Ten years ago we were trapped by a fire from the south that formed a comma around us. I was in my condo, my fans blowing smoky air around my kitchen. I didn’t open the windows. I didn’t go outside. I thought my shortness of breath was asthma. Then the panic attacks started and the next winter I needed the light machine for seasonal affect disorder. I turn it on when I read The Globe and Mail’s articles about things that matter or people or people that matter.
It’s crowded in Fort McMurray. That’s part of the problem. You have traffic here. A town built for maybe 20,000 people has four times that many in it. Highway 63 brings you into town, past the airport. You gear down the long hill in your Toyota Celica, merge with trucks and cars emptying out from Gregoire, Beacon Hill and Abasand subdivisions. And now it’s a race to get to the stoplight downtown. You’re forced to brake there, consider whether you want a Tim Horton’s or something from the Walmart. And then it’s across the bridge where traffic stalls to a halt the first sign of spring break up and no matter what day it is you’re fighting for space between the buses, dozens of buses, that take 63 north to the plants. All day long buses travel that road. Some of them grind up the hills into Thickwood and Timberlea, too, haul more guys out to their jobs. Buses full of stinking guys. Maybe they’re not, but I think they must be because of the bitumen and the tar and the crap job and don’t forget they’re doing seven 12 hour shifts in a row and probably eating crap food, too and you know how that is when it goes through your system. It makes you stink. I drive past them, all the guys lined up at the bus stops on my way to my quiet job.
Tags: short stories
