My name is Eagle Flies and our people have been devastated, I do not remember much of my childhood…only my parents and the open fields where we played and lived. We once went across the land hunting for food and shared the land with our kin, but then THEY came, in THEIR big dark steel ships. THEY’VE now been here longer than my generation and the three before, and slowly over the years the land changed, THEY were of far higher numbers and had built things that my ancestors would never had thought possible. But although THEY possessed things unimaginable to my people, THEY knew little about caring for our fragile world. Instead, THEY built permanent settlements around our planet which disrupted the migration of animals and would ceaselessly consume all around THEM only to grow THEIR settlements and numbers more, and even more would come down through the ships. When THEY first came, on accident as many found out THEY appeared friendly and despite THEIR different clothes, language, and customs. We traded with THEM where THEY gave us some of THEIR weapons and goods while we gave simple yet effective remedies for diseases THEY suffered. But as THEY grew in number and THEIR hold on our world became firmer, THEY began to turn, and the weapons and goods THEY brought began to take a tole. Soon we began fighting among ourselves far more than we did before as the THEY would also fight among themselves and use us in THEIR fights. The drink THEY brought somehow showed the ugly side of everyone who drank it and the disease and famine came. My grandmother told me untold numbers died as some tribes simply vanished and every one of our people felt the death and violence around us. Then came the assimilation.
My grandmother was brought first to where the THEY assimilated us, and forced us to surrender ourselves and to accept THEIR way. And to replace our own flesh with THIER cold cybernetics both so THEY could cause us further torment and to further indoctrinate us. My grandmother lost her right arm to the cybernetics and she was very reluctant to mention those dark places. My parents lost more of themselves to the cybernetics and were also further tormented by their experiences, they turned to the substances given by THEM and fought often as a result. So, when THEY came dressed in a white robe with much of THIER body replaced by white shiny machinery arrived in one of THEIR shuttles. My father had disappeared for the time so only my mother and grandmother were there to say goodbye. They both hugged and me to the point where it hurt and all I heard was their crying and them telling me to behave. My grandmother kissed a feather then gave it to me. Then I felt the cold robotic hand of the THEM as THEY towered over me and spoke in a grating mechanical tone, THEY commanded me to enter the shuttle. And as the sound of my family crying of my family was replaced by the sound of the shuttle’s takeoff. The driver accelerated, as THEY took my grandma’s feather and crushed it in THIER fist, I was only four.
Upon the shuttle landing by steel building much like those of the cities off in the distance I was guided out as the driver held my hand. Others in the same clothes stood outside as others wore a hood drawn over THEIR head. It was scary seeing so many of THEM where many lacked eyes and instead had artificial censors and eyes. Other children like me walked single file opposite, all of them had a dead look in their eyes and many appeared scarred and bruised. THEY spoke again, but I did not understand them. THEY pushed me in a room and began tugging and cutting at my hair, I screamed and tried to tell THEM that THEY were hurting me but all THEY did was pull harder and yell more. THEY stripped me naked as THEY threw my clothes away, I tried to take them because my mother had made them. THEY then pushed me into a large room where a couple dozen children sat and were eating a truly repulsive food. THEY pushed me onto the bench and pointed at two characters on the table and began talking in THEIR strange language again as THEY pointed at the characters. THEY made me eat the slop and when I could not eat it, THEY force fed it. THEY then threw me in a room another room full of beds and made me sleep on one. When the lights closed a boy three years older crawled to my bed and I noticed a stump on his arm,
“Accept them and the pain is less”
THEY yelled into the room, I cried myself to sleep I miss home.
I am Twenty-Nine, it has been two years since I first came. The pain did not become less over that time instead it became numb. I cannot sleep any more no matter how much THEY beat and yell and me, I keep thinking about my family. After being here for a so long I learned why they were so scared and on top of the fact that this place was horrifying the realized fear that my family is enduring is somehow worse. THEY try to teach THEIR beliefs and tell us that all our parents and ancestors belong in damnation, and that in order to save us THEY must kill a part of us, and that it will hurt more if we resist. But how can THEIR caring God damn people who never knew about him? I remember waking up one night and to a violent sound and screams. I found one of THEM standing over a boy, about year older than me, saw off his own arm. He had a twisted smile as he sawed harder muttering in-between screams in THEIR tongue. He talked about how he was becoming purer and better, and saying how he wanted the pain his ancestors gave him to stop. I have been beaten many times due to speaking my tongue but after seeing the boy hurt himself so much so he could become different strengthened my resolve to remember and embrace my past.
I am nine and I am one of the few who still speaks my tongue. Many my age have given up and are mutilating themselves in hope of receiving the cybernetics. Due to how far from home I am I am not allowed to visit home but one of my few friends did visit home and told me every day he sees his family his resolve becomes stronger to carry on and defy and that in-turn strengthens my resolve. Some who had given in either refused to head home or came back saying the wished they had never gone. I have bruises all along my body and quite a few scabs and scars when the beating was at its worse, but THEY never really could get through to me and that scared THEM, and I became more determined. Even when THEY tried to get us to pray, we instead prayed to our own religion, we would get beaten even more but we gave the younger kids hope, and made THEM flinch.
I am now eleven and my resolve has weakened, all that keeps me going are the new kids, I try to help them and talk in our old tongue but I have become worse at speaking our language and the four-year-olds often correct me. Dakota still visits his family and will help me speak but it has gotten harder, and soon I speak THEIR language far more than two years before. I also lack the boldness I had at nine to speak out against the teachers, instead I comply with less enthusiasm than many. Many my age have cybernetics and seem to see this place in a better light then us. Only four my age have no cybernetics, and only three of us can speak our language. THEY know what the four of us are and what we do, and THEY have kept a closer eye on us.
It has been a month and a lot has changed Dakota cannot visit his family anymore, and something happened to our third friend Soyala that he refuses to talk about. We all think that whatever stories we heard of the girls and what THEY did to them also happened to Soyala. He is distanced himself from us, and THEY single us out more in classes and prayer and beat us in front of the younger students. Two years ago, we were symbols of hope to them, now we are a reminder of consequence here.
Soyala’s dead…he died three months after what the staff did to him, we found him one night with random parts of himself hacked off hoping for cybernetics, but he ended up killing himself. We are beaten constantly now and I have little hope for what next. Ahanu prays to THEIR god now constantly as he tells us that whenever he follows the way of THEIR god he is spared from THEIR torture. He now only talks about his catharsis and spiritual awakening as he tells us to follow his examples because the pain is stopping. Whenever we pray now Ahanu stands the tallest, sings the loudest, and worships with passion. He also tells us that he wants us with him after life, but he also says that God will be enough. Dakota is at cross-roads as he tells me Ahanu may be right.
I am twelve. Ahanu now is the happiest person in this world. He skips down the halls, preaches the word of THEIR religion, always speaks in class and almost all his body is mechanical. He urges everyone to follow his footsteps and eats his slop with joy saying that God makes the slop better. Dakota has lost his hand but we still speak in the old tongue however broken our language may be. But it would be a lie to say I have much hope, yet I cannot bring myself to accepting THEIR ways either. I sit silently in class as well and the kids that once looked up to me now look up at Ahanu. It is heartbreaking to watch them harm themselves. I still dream of home but I struggle to remember faces, and my strongest memory is the worst. And yet when I think about the flight to this place and the fact, I have spent all my known life here the fact that I remember home and some of my language and the sadness of my family when I left might be what is stopping me from giving in.
It has been nine years here, not even a third of my life has been at home, and I am tired of helping the kids and the younger folk, Ahanu’s been doing that or at least he thinks. But I am done with the school in general I need to leave. Dakota thinks that I have gone crazier than Ahanu, but I tell him we will be Ahanu in another month if we do not leave. So, before we deliver the fruits and meats to the staff we stuff it in our clothes, then when we are allowed outside, we will make a run for it.
It has been three days and we are lost, I thought that since our ancestors were skilled at roaming this world, we would have inherited that skill. But I was never more wrong as we traversed the same field at least three times a day. We only have a day left of food so we just walked aimlessly in a straight line. We drank from a pond…stupid idea, now I feel horribly sick and am greatly slowed. Dakota tries to urge me to continue but we both know the truth. At least we found a sign that Dakota recognized, so we hurried our pace, but as we drew close, I saw two of THEM standing at the road side with a sensor at hand. They knew we were here, so I gave Dakota my food as we both ran opposite directions. I ran in way where I would get caught but it would appear as if I were not trying to get caught. THEY took the bait and brought me back to the school.
It has been five days since I turned myself in, and I am crushed. THEY found Dakota, and THEY told me he was found dead ten miles off the closest reserve. I felt nothing for days, I mostly retreated inwards and entered the place in my mind that I felt most comfortable. I pictured home, but dad was present and no one had cybernetics or problems. Just my home and my family, sometimes Dakota. Would come by and we would all laugh and do everything we did before I was taken. I refused to think about the world around me. Whenever people woke me, I pictured being waked by my family instead of THEM, eating home food instead of slope, playing in the fields instead of wandering the front of the school, and going to bed in my old bed instead of the hard steal beds. When I fell asleep, I was excited to dream again.
I am fifteen now…and my perspective has changed, I feel like I need to do something to stop myself from giving in. I need to stay strong for Dakota, that is what he saw me as when I turned myself in. I do not know when I began to stop retreating inside myself so often, maybe because I grew older and more mature, maybe because the memories grew dimmer, and maybe because I accepted the loss of my friend. So, I have begun talking to the new children they bring in as I relearn my language I nearly forgot and give the children and students of all ages hope. I became smarter and did not speak out in class instead I talked mostly in the night or outdoors, or I would take a scrap of food from THEM and put it in the slop for the younger kids. Even the people who looked up to me back when I was nine began to look up again and feel hope. It has been hard but those who had the resolve of Dakota and I still hold on like me. For many it is a flickering light but it is still a light.
The school is still horrible and I wish for home every day but I have a new form of resolve, I have helped others do the same as me and give hope to those willing to see it. Although we are not outwardly happy like Ahanu and those like him we held the light of hope within us. We knew that unless THEY broke all of us, we would still have our resolve because others would reignite that light of hope. I still dream each night about home but this time I dream about returning to it with its flaws and every time in the dream I am the one that fixes the flaws. Not like when I dreamed before and saw an idealized home with all its problems magically solved. I felt a new passion within, when I get out, I would do my best to help everyone at home. And I had a near crazed drive that this would all happen when I left here not if.
I am sixteen and although I have found a new resolve it also appears that THEY found it too, and THEY are trying to break me like when I nine. I am beaten daily and I have lost three teeth, one of my fingers is at an awkward angle and I cannot help but limp much of the time I move around. THEY’VE beaten me beyond the physical but I still stand, and it scares THEM. Yesterday I was released from the school cellar with the rats. I had been there three days, and I managed to find a bowl of water somewhere in the dark. I felt like THEY watched me as I drank from there like an animal, it is how they saw me, so I did not care. The darkness was unbearable as I felt as if I would get jumped any second by a rat, there was no sound down there. And I heard that this was where Soyala and the girls went when the unspeakable happened. And I was frightened, I did not know the time of day anytime down there, I only knew because I nearly died of thirst. I prayed every hour asking for the protection of my ancestors, every time I heard footsteps nearby, I prayed and they receded, when I was released by one of THEM, they acted shocked and I could not tell if they were playing games or were truly shocked. I was too tired to know. And I felt half crazy.
At seventeen I felt a sense of foreboding, I felt as if that when I left everyone, I knew who I tried to help would turn to mutilation again and all I did would be for nothing. I talked to a friend of mine, Rains Falls who told me that he would follow my footsteps and that I should focus on getting out and helping from the other side. I remember it was late at night and in his broken tongue like me he said,
“I don’t believe a whole race or nation is so evil where THEY would accept this. I think it’s evil people in high places, but I think most of THEM are in the dark”
I agreed with him as I vowed to do all I could for everyone while I was still here and especially after.
It is the day before I leave. I am packing my stuff up when I sense a shadow come behind me, it is the driver who first brought me here THEY spoke in a grating voice,
“You should’ve listened when I first brought you here twenty-nine, your nothing and you’ll always be nothing. No one will shed a tear when you burn in hell”
I packed my bags and looked him in the eye, with pity,
“I think history will judge our fates”
THEY swore at me then hurried off. Upon leaving the next day each of the staff except the member who got me out of the cellar stared daggers at me as I left. As I stared out at the school, I could see students watch as I left, many of my friends nodded to me as I entered the shuttle and looked flew back home.
It has been twenty years since I left. The home I returned to was changed greatly, my father dead, mother succumbing to mental illness, and my grandmother on her death bed. Upon seeing me with no cybernetics a tear rolled down her cheek as she clasped my hand in joy. Her final words to me were the pride she felt. I took care of my mother until her death for the next five years, she loved me greatly but the damage to her body from her substance abuse was too great despite her quitting soon after my arrival. She said she wished she had not drowned herself in those substances in my absence because now she was not able to enjoy life with me. For the next five years I heeded Rains Fall, I seeked the good in THEM to bring down the schools to stop them from robbing more children of their youth. I met new friends and reconnected with old friends. But poor Ahanu upon leaving the school found his blessings and reassurance from his god were not present in this world. Because he relied too much on a high power, he committed suicide soon after both through the loss of his identity and the belief his God left him when really his autonomy had left him. I was one of five at his funeral. It was harrowing to see as he was lowered into the dirt, I thought about when I lived in my own dreamland and about how close I was to becoming like him. I have reconnected with my culture and self as I live now with scars from school but I have grown beyond those scars. I now have a family that I know is safe after our people fought long and hard for the schools to be torn down. My wife is a survivor like me and we both named our children after those who helped us stay whole through school. When I think about it now, a decade after the schools began being torn down, I remember what I said about history when I left the school at eight-teen. History will not see my people as victims they will see us as survivors. And many will say those we lost were weak and they have weakened our people, but their loss made us stronger as those of us who remained continued in their name. We continue for Ahanu and Dakota, for those who turned away from us, and those who have been drowned in substances. They make us stronger, because unlike THEM we have something to fight for. Our people will be remembered like a blade, thrust into flames of unimaginable hardship yet the blade leaves the furnace stronger and sharper. Now as I look to the future, I have a long way ahead not just for me but my people. But if we stay true to our history and roots, accept change, show the other side compassion, and focus on rebuilding it is a road with light at the end.
Summary: My Story was a sci-fi short about assimilation and I wanted a write a story about how I interoperated it. I used caps when referring to the antagonists because I felt that by giving them all caps and only using words that hide much about the antagonists added to the idea of fear and how the protagonist saw them. My protagonist is the culmination of many stories I heard of residential school survivors plus a little added by myself. Many survivors I read about were defiant in the early years in residential schools much like Eagle Flies, and many also entered idealized versions of their homes as a coping mechanism like Eagle Flies. And many who survived became more mature and tried to help others like Eagle Flies. The cybernetics resemble assimilation and how many who accepted it lost a part of their past as a result, such as not being able to talk to their families upon leaving the schools. And many who left the schools left with cybernetics or in the real word’s case mental scars and the destruction of identity. That is a main reason Ahanu commits suicide in the end, due to the loss of his identity and self. When he broke during school he had a zealot like belief of THEIR religion, believing that God stopped the beatings when really it was his compliance that mostly stopped the beatings. His belief gave him a resolve like the protagonists but Ahanu’s was twisted and broken. So, when he entered the real world where he was not beaten constantly and did not know himself, he committed suicide believing God left him. When I was looking up names for my characters, I found that Ahanu means the one who laughs, and that fit his ark quite well. Dakota was Eagle File’s best friend and before and after death Dakota is the root of much of Eagle Flies’ resolve. Dakota is all those who died trying to escape and who countless students sacrificed themselves for so people like Dakota could run away. Dakota means friend / ally and that fit his character quite well. Soyala was all those children who were raped and abused and could not take it anymore, he commits suicide in school and is the beginning of Eagle Flies’ friends falling apart. When the Dakota and Eagle Flies escape it is much like indigenous youth who believe that they inherited the ability to navigate the wild like their ancestors but forgot the aspect that those skills were taught. Eagle Flies retreating into himself is largely based off the girl in we were children as that was her coping mechanism too when she was traumatized. The idea of the kids being inspired by Eagle Flies did happen in schools as students did still help one another during the night and that is when many spoke their tongue. Eagle Flies gave the same resolve to the kids that his family and Dakota gave him. The reason Eagle Flies’ grandmother was more adjusted than his parents was because his grandmother had parents who were not in the schools, but the grandma was still hit hard and that was exasperated through the generation that followed her. So, when Eagle Flies returns with no cybernetics, she is joyous to know that there is hope for her grandson and the generations which follow. Eagle-Flies’ dad was already deeply traumatized and upon Eagle-Flies leaving his dad left because he couldn’t bear to see his son go. And Eagle-Flies’ mother abused many chemicals in his absence due to how scared she was for him and by the time Eagle-Flies returned her body was too damaged for her to see him grow, even though she stopped the substances almost immediately upon his return. In the end I wanted to establish that indigenous people experienced hardship but that they were tested by every conceivable force yet still many stood. That is what Eagle-Flies was thinking at the end.
Gr. 9 Truth & Reconciliation 