Hope and Poetry
From Pulp Literature Issue 46, find an excerpt of the runner-up from our 2024 Raven Short Story Contest, ‘Providence’ by Emily Groot.
Providence
by Emily Groot
Henry Nicholls had hoped to be a poet, although he had no business with hope or poetry. He’d grown up in a two-room house in England and left school for the Cornwall mines at age ten. Now, on the north shore of Lake Huron, in a damp cabin a short walk from what would come to be known as Canada’s first copper mine, the rain and late-season mosquitoes kept Henry awake. The air was thick, too humid for Henry’s sweat to dry, sticking his sheet to his back. He shuffled in his bunk, trying to find a cool spot.
There was no clock, but Henry felt the sleepless hours passing — a frustration he had known since arriving in Upper Canada from Cornwall. Despite the clouds, the cabin was brightening. Sleep would not come now. It was Sunday, and the rain would make for good fishing after church. He stretched and left the cabin for the outhouse while the seven other men slept.
My dear Sarah,
I have received news of a cholera outbreak in Sault Ste Marie, possibly extending to Bruce Mines. I am leaving immediately, although I fear my medicine will be useless. I apologize I was unable to say goodbye in person. I expect to return in a fortnight. I am unsure how this disease spreads. I will quarantine myself from you after my return.
With love,
Wilfred
Henry was right: the fishing was excellent. The clouds had given way to weak sun and sticky air. Henry and another miner, Anselm, used the herring that crowded by the shore as bait for larger fish. They cooked one lake trout for lunch and smoked two others. Although the bushes had been picked over, there were enough blueberries to each enjoy a handful. Anselm offered his handkerchief when the purple juice streaked down Henry’s chin.
Anselm was the most beautiful man Henry had ever had the pleasure of seeing. Anselm had bright blue eyes not yet dulled by work underground. They had met, these two Cornish men, by impossibly small chance in the busy port of Montréal. They shared the trip to Bruce Mines together, and Henry fell in love as soon as Anselm’s rough hands had brushed against him. Now, they shared a semblance of a life together in these woods. They could never have a house in the village, no, but they could share meals and work and sleep, and wasn’t that almost the same?
Find the full story in Pulp Literature Issue 46, Spring 2025
Emily Groot is a public health physician, born and raised in Sault Ste Marie on the territory of the Garden River and Batchewana First Nations. She now lives with her family in Sudbury. ‘Providence’ was inspired by the true story of the 1849 cholera outbreak in Bruce Mines.
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