Calvin and Nanuq

Calvin Encinata had grown quite anxious living in the city. You see, dear reader, a Bible placed in the hands of a child with an overactive imagination can be a terrible curse. So it was for little Calvin.

Like Chicken Little he was waiting for the sky to fall. He’d look up in panic with the roar of a jet, or grew flush with dread as a single sinful thought passed between his ears. He sought to flee his urban existence for fear he could be living in the next Gomorrah. So began a childhood fascination with the most remote mountains of the world.

His sister, Alicia, had run away long ago^[1], leaving him all alone in his sheltered, homeschooled, hell. But she left him with two gifts which would one day inspire him to make his escape. On the night she left, under his bed pillow he discovered a cassette tape and a childrens book...

The 90 minute Maxell recording tape was unlabeled, and it's write protect tabs had been snapped off. He had assumed it was a message from his estranged sister, though he would discover it was a collection of songs unlike any he had heard before. "Led Zeppelin IV" would change his life, forever giving Christian music the aspartame taint of caffeine free diet rock.

The book was titled "Oh the Places You'll Go!". He would commit to memory these words by an odd man named Dr. Suess:

"So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'shea
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your Mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!"
  
These words ignited him. You see dear reader, now more then ever, Calvin was certain that he would one day make it to those mountains he saw in his dreams. To spite his parents for imbuing him with the fear of God he embraced his craving for catechism of the non-creationist sort. And so Calvin gave up theology and garnered a mechanical engineering degree with a minor in marine biology.

Here our tale takes a sad turn. For school was meant to purge those pious fears via his knack for science; instead his studies saddled him with even more trepidation. He came to see the world around him as a petri dish of death. Thus he surmised that anything eaten, inhaled, or touched contained microscopic pariah on par with any demon the old testament could conjure.

The world was dusted over with a thin, invisible layer of carcinogens. Virulent strains of hemorrhagic bacteria waiting patiently with one primary goal in mind: to be absorbed into his blood stream. There they would swiftly  be stored away in his fat cells, biding their time, gestating, slowly uncurling microscopic tentacles to infect their neighbors. He imagined every cell in his body as a ticking time bomb; cellular torpedoes set to seek out his brain and induce dementia at any given moment. A common cold or the most subtle episode of forgetfulness could send him into panic attacks.

After graduation Calvin became a port worker in Vancouver B.C., using his skills to keep the portainer cranes running smoothly in the shipyards. On weekends he would drive into those mountains which towered over the city. It saddened him to discover they could'nt give him the solace he thought they would provide. Perhaps he was still too close to the city?

And thus his anxieties overcame him and he fled deep into the mountains of the Yukon. Bringing only a fishing rod, his Brahma chickens, Mattie and Marian, and an Alaskan Husky named Nanuq^[2]. Casting away his dependence on Paxil, Ativan, Prozac, and Klonopin. He sought a new beginning without god or science. Trusting only a sketchbook^[3], his pets, and a daily dose of Ginko Bilboa and Saint Johns Wart.

Every night, after washing his hands until they bled, the anxiety would slowly taper away. He’d lay there in bed wondering if god created cancer to make him afraid, or a cancerous brain had unnaturally increased his fear of god.

Like clockwork, at midnight his dog would leap up onto the bed and rest his head on Calvin’s thigh. The Husky would stare directly into his eyes with that crumpled dog brow illustrating concern for his master. Eventually Calvin would fall asleep with Nanuq resting peacefully at the foot of the bed.