A Canadian look at dystopia
The Last Hockey Player By Bretton Loney Post-apocalyptic/www. brettonloney.com
$7.99 128 pages
Dystopian fiction is having a moment now, with “Walking Dead” and “Handmaids” and Orwell’s “1984” retaking bestseller lists. The genre rings with our times. Stakes are getting raised high, everyone is as anxious as heck, and dystopian storytelling allows its creator — author, screenwriter, filmmaker — to spin speculative scenarios. What if the worst happened? What if everything collapsed? What would be left? More precisely, what would be left that was human?
Bretton Loney’s “The Last Hockey Player” is set in a postapocalyptic near future. (Interestingly, while apocalypse means the end of the world à la The Book of Revelations, its Greek origins also mean “uncover” or “reveal.”) A lethal cycle of pandemics known as the Bogota Virus, the Second Sickness, and the Black Sickness have caused “The Crumbling,” a massive social collapse reducing humanity to small agri-tribes surviving without electricity, much medicine, or any of the necessities or conveniences of the modern life that existed within living memory (18 years ago).
Cities are still dangerous infectious sites too perilous for scavenging and survivors congregate and co-operate in rural collectives. If lucky they communicate and trade with others nearby. If unlucky they must face roving bands of savages or warlords.
The story is set in “The Barns,” a community of 31 souls in what was once Nova Scotia, and told from three perspectives: The Apprentice, a clubfooted boy being trained as a teacher, which involves the embedding and sharing of knowledge and history in recitals of “the speeches”; Brittany, the teacher and his strong parental figure; and the titular Last Hockey Player, a mysterious and possibly harmful man on a journey of his own trajectory and motives.
He crashes into the communal sleeping hut one night, and is brought to the Protocol Hut, to see if he is infected or will live through the night. The hut itself is a bit of a trial, as it isn’t well-made enough to keep anyone warm. Protocol Huts aren’t worth investing time in as they so frequently have to be burnt along with anybody carrying illness.
But after two days Hockey Player is still alive and Brittany questions him. He tells her he started out from the U.S.
“It took him more than a year to walk to our village. It is insane to walk all that way alone. He is lucky to be alive. The stranger has seen many things and people during his travels. Some were cannibals and he stayed well away ... One night in upstate New York, he walked past a village in a forest that was all lit up, guarded by huge, barking dogs. The stranger says he was sure it had electricity. I burst out laughing at that one.”
Electric lights and heat — no one can imagine such a possibility. The older people, “the grey ones,” can remember, and weep. But the younger ones only know existence as it is now.
The Barns lives by hunting, fishing, and bartering for resources like apples. Even the smallest child has a role, and chores. And yet in such an environment, songs and festivals are vital. The Barns lives for such events, for games like Google It, and most especially hockey.
Google It is a quiz. The teacher is Google “because they think I know everything”; she asks the questions the teams must answer to win the prize (a night in the Teacher’s Hut, a rare episode of privacy).
She dislikes Google It as “a foolish trivia contest,” but it is popular and “the Leader insists I do it as she thinks it is a good way to pass on information.”
But the favourite by far is hockey. Even those like The Apprentice, who cannot play, are passionate about the contests. “Today our village plays a special hockey game against Timhortons ... Our village hopes to do well in the game. We have Neil-young, Gretsky, and Avril and now we have Hockey Player.” They assemble at Sweet Water Pond where “the two teams play for The Cup.
Not the real Stanley Cup, but every hockey game must be played for a cup. Today The
The story is set in “The Barns,” a community of 31 souls in what was once Nova Scotia, and told from three perspectives …
Barns and Timhortons play for the Esso Cup. It’s a glass mug with no cracks in it so it’s truly special.”
Loney has distilled Canadian culture into such residue, a nice tight blend of conjecture and realism.
He explains the novel originated from a short story and there’s still a compactness to the prose.
Which doesn’t limit its scope, as The Apprentice struggles to learn, Brittany to guide, and Hockey Player to weigh what is worth fighting for when so much is already lost.