Lakagígar

There are two ways the world ends.

In a roar of fire and thunder — or so slowly it freezes solid before anyone even notices.

Beneath the towering silos of the massive Viterra grain terminal, in the Nisku industrial park south of Edmonton, Alberta, the sharp, dusty smell of canola mixed with the ear-numbing roar of machinery until there was no room left in the nose or the skull for anything else.

A golden tide of canola rode the conveyor and poured into the hopper trailer like a river going over a falls. I stood beside the old company rig — a truck I'd grown attached to, or maybe just thoroughly sick of — and watched it fall, empty-headed and far away.

That's it. Get this load to Saskatoon in one piece, and ten years of dreaming finally comes true.

The Kenworth W990.

Just the name of it was enough to set my heart slamming against my ribs. My truck. The one that would finally be mine.

"She's almost full, Chan."

My name is Lee Chan. I kept the Korean as-is, and nobody out here seemed to mind.

"Already?"

"Yeah, let's wrap it up. You're looking pretty good today. Last run doing that to you?"

I turned toward the familiar voice. Dave was coming over, hard hat off, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a grin. He ran the loading dock here — a short, solid guy, and every bit as cheerful as he was compact.

"Caught me, Dave. This is really the last one. No more driving this company piece of junk."

"That's right — you're an owner-operator now. Your own truck, your own boss. Haha."

"Boss? More like a slave to a five-year note."

"Fair enough. Time to turn this old tin can back in, then. You gonna miss her?"

"Yeah, I got a little attached, I guess. Still — she deserves a rest. The way she gels up on me sometimes, I feel like I'm committing elder abuse."

"I hear you, but I don't think the company's on the same page. They'll probably run her into the ground on short-haul until she dies."

"So this is the last long haul, then."

If she were mine, I wouldn't have left her sitting in a dust pit like this.

"Anyway, congratulations, pal. You're gonna be rich."

"Rich? This is just what I get for ten years of wrestling logbooks and working myself to the bone. You know how I've lived since I came to Canada."

Dave nodded.

"I know, I know. Nobody around here doesn't know how hard you've worked. Hauling seven days a week — no weekends, nothing."

I didn't answer.

"Take it easier now, yeah? You were in the military twice, weren't you?"

"One of those I got dragged into. Anyway — I'll see you around."

"Yeah. Congrats on the new truck, for real. Drive safe, like always. You know the drill!"

"Thanks, Dave. Take care of yourself too."

The loader pulled back, and I locked down the hopper lids until they sat tight. Next stop was the scale. An overweight fine from the Canadian DOT would wipe out a day's pay in a single swing, so checking the gross and the weight on every axle wasn't the kind of thing you got casual about.

Okay.

Dave handed me the BOL and kept talking.

"Take this. You're gonna be driving into the night. All right — seriously, be careful out there."

"Don't worry about me. I could run this road without a nav."

I scrawled my signature across the stack of papers the way I had a thousand times before.

From the grain terminal in Nisku, south of Edmonton, I'd drop this last load, return the empty trailer, and head back to the yard in Yellowknife — a twelve-hundred-kilometer run that felt like the tedious final stretch of a tutorial level.

Finish this, and ten years of dreaming finally comes true.

I'd driven the route often enough, but today the reward waiting at the far end of it made the whole thing feel light.

HOS was the only thing worth worrying about.

Last run. Maybe I put my foot into it a little?

No. Last run is exactly when you drive it safer.

I climbed into the cab of the old Cascadia. The seat cushions had long since given up the ghost, the steering wheel shone with years of palm grease, and the dashboard was a constellation of scratches and stains I could never identify. Back when they'd first assigned me this truck, I'd thought, Hell, this is it — I'm a trucker now. Now it just felt like starter gear I couldn't wait to dump at the end of the tutorial.

I turned the key. The familiar Detroit Diesel grumbled awake like something that resented being asked, and a scatter of warning lights flared and died. Air hissed into the tanks with a bright, cheerful shhhk. Every bit of it sat in my hands the way ten years will put a thing in your hands — without having to think.

It felt like stepping into the last stage of a main quest I'd been grinding toward for a very long time.

I pulled the heavy hopper trailer out onto the Mackenzie Highway. Asphalt ran out ahead of me without end, and the prairie horizon stretched until it had nothing left to give.

I switched on the radio to keep the boredom company.

Aigoo. You'd think people would be more careful...

An old Garth Brooks number came on next, one I actually liked, and I turned the volume up a notch. Running east all afternoon meant I had the sun at my back, so the glare was easier and the driving went smoother for it.

Hands on the wheel, watching a road that didn't seem to end, the old things would surface whether I invited them or not.

I'd thrown myself at this on purpose. That didn't change how it had felt.

I'd landed in Alberta at twenty-six with a single immigrant suitcase and nobody waiting, and these endless roads had looked like a wall — a maze with no map. I didn't know a soul. I couldn't see a foot in front of me.

I'd started as kitchen help at Tim Hortons, gone to swinging a hammer on the Fort McMurray oil-sands sites, and in winter I'd been out before dawn pushing snow off city streets. There wasn't much I hadn't done.

Compared to that, I'm a max-level hero character now, aren't I?

The confidence settled into the hands on the wheel.

Ten years. I'd run at it and never looked sideways. Catnaps at rest areas and truck stops. No days off, punching through blizzard after blizzard over the Rocky Mountains, and in summer cutting across the killing heat of the American southern deserts. I'd saved ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every dollar like it owed me something.

I'd bought a house in my own name. I was about to put my hands on the best truck I could get. And then I'd sold the house I'd worked so hard for. A place to live was a luxury when you lived alone, and somewhere along the way I'd decided that one day I was going to leave Canada.

So what's left? Final boss: marriage?

A dry little laugh got out of me. For now, a single-player run across this enormous continent still sounded like the better game.

Or maybe I'll be running solo raids for the rest of my life.

The afternoon sun had slid far enough west that it caught both side mirrors and threw the glare back in my eyes. Strangely, every mile of road today looked peaceful. Complete, even.

Get this run done clean, and a new chapter of my life starts.

The Kenworth W990. The thought of putting my own hands on that wheel and running this Yellowhead Highway again set my heart hammering with a fresh jolt of anticipation. I eased into the old truck's accelerator and held a steady hundred kilometers an hour, the whole rig gliding over the asphalt as if the road had been poured for it. Tire hum on the pavement and the low murmur of the engine — a rhythm that, to a trucker, was as close to healing as sound could get.

The sun had slid well west by then, and the truck's long shadow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ran down the road beside me. The country number wound out, and the familiar CBC top-of-the-hour signal came up on the radio.

Quebec independence, huh.

I clicked my tongue, hands still on the wheel. The boys down south start a fire, and now Quebec wants in on it. What a circus. I couldn't tell anymore which way the world was leaning. The news had been screaming about this stuff for days, but to me it landed about as personal as an emergency-maintenance notice on a server I didn't even play on.

I've got truck payments to make. Quebec can secede or not secede — what's it to me? Still. At least I had a year's worth of supplies put away.

My childhood surfaced without being asked. My parents had always worried about war, about floods, and preparedness wasn't a hobby in our house — it was just how we lived. My mother managed months of food and water on a first-in, first-out rotation. And my father would spring strange questions on me, little assignments, little missions. They usually went something like this.

That was the wisdom my father left me, and it had saved me twice over in the military. Which is probably why stockpiling and Plan B had become as much a hobby as a habit. I had a separate bug-out bag for every kind of emergency, and one of them was sitting in the passenger seat right now.

What broke the reminiscing was the cold leaking in through a gap in the old truck's window.

Damn it. How cold is this year trying to get if it's already like this?

For a while now, winter in northern Canada had been arriving earlier, staying longer, and turning meaner. The news liked to talk about a "climate crisis" and "global warming," but what I felt on my skin was a colder fact: the number of bitterly, miserably frozen days just kept going up.

Five more years. Grind it out, stack the money.

Then I really do walk away from all of it and run south — somewhere like California, where you can go a whole winter without seeing snow.

I could see it. Warm sun. A convertible on a coastal highway lined with palm trees. A place where you could live in a T-shirt all year round. A place where you never had to worry about a Canadian winter night dropping past thirty below, or diesel so cold it gelled in the lines and the engine wouldn't even turn over.

A clean break from this godforsaken cold. Forever.

The thought pulled a stupid little smile out of me. Retiring to warm California still felt like a dream sitting on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠far side of a very long road.

That was when the radio cut through the daydream.

Damn it. There go parts prices. Consumables too.

A warning light went off in my head. This wasn't about a price hike. Words like tariff war and port strike, strung together, were a death sentence for a trucker. No parts, and this mountain of steel was just scrap.

I didn't give myself time to hesitate. I called Frank, the parts manager at the dealership that was supposed to hand me my truck. The line rang twice, and a blunt voice came on.

I hung up with Frank and pulled the truck onto the shoulder. I needed to send the deposit. On any other day I could have done it rolling. Today, for reasons I couldn't name, I felt like I had to stop.

Once Frank's confirmation came through, a weight came off, and something like satisfaction settled in behind it.

I climbed back into the truck. The radio was still talking to itself.