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Writers Room | On the Wildfires: Of Course She Ran Back

by Mikaela Brewer ​for The 44 North, Senior Editor



after Natalie Diaz’s “Of Course She Looked Back”


In a small middle school classroom in Red Lake, Ontario, Rilla Fable was called upon to answer a question in English class. 


Cocking his head to the side, so that his ear became a funnel for her voice, Mr. Wilcox nodded as Rilla spoke. But it was clear he hadn’t heard her, for he paraphrased his own question following a kind smile. 


Rilla wasn’t one for speaking, really, at all. But Jack, who sat behind her and had turned thirteen first, said that she better be careful: Her vocal cords would surely dry out if she didn’t use them enough, catching fire like sticks rubbed together when she ever did need to speak. 


Despite what everyone else thought, her inner world wasn’t, likewise, silent. It was anything but. 


Rilla glanced out the window. The smoke was so dense that the teachers’ parking lot was no longer visible. She closed her eyes for a moment and listened: The brush fires couldn’t be seen. Nor could the snapping and cracking be heard. 


***


Rilla’s N95 mask strings were too tight, folding her ears down as she walked home from school. Her dad’s cycling sunglasses, with wraparound wind protection, didn’t block the ash from slipping behind her contact lenses. The fires weren’t far now, and the sky was thick with an orange haze that bled the sun’s light. Surely, the evacuation order would come soon. 


Rilla stopped, knelt, and thumbed a brown-singed red lily growing from the boulevard. She looked across the dry grass as she stood; the wildlife was scorched along the sidewalks. Summer gardens had scattered into crumbs across front yards. Tree leaves had withered to lace. Rilla swept a finger along her bare forearm: No sweat. The air itself seemed dead, parched in the 35-degree heat.


Taking a shortcut through a paved ravine without sidewalks, Rilla had to avoid the bluffs this time—closed to the public to delay the fire spreading. There wasn’t much foot or car traffic here, given the steep, uneven asphalt, but there was usually a wide river bisecting the road, continuing beneath it. Rilla could always hear it rushing a few hundred metres away, comforted: It always seemed to know which direction to run. But there was no sound, now. For weeks it had been nothing but a small stream, hardly even a ‘burn’ as Rilla’s Scottish grandfather would’ve called it. But nestled among it were the friendly faces she’d hoped to see—the real reason she took this shortcut.


Rilla stopped on the metal-plated bridge overlooking the river, smiling as she watched pots being filled in the stream, soon to soak and soften dried ramen noodles. The coloured tents looked like a carnival, and perhaps that wasn’t an entirely dismissive observation. Each person she’d met in the encampment had a skill to offer the group: Cooking, sewing, medicine, geography, and knowledge of safe injection sites. The difference was, no one lined up to see the brilliance they had to offer the world. Locals seemed to see them as glitches in their life: Stains, filth, and impurity. They didn’t see Tomah’s large brown hands whittling wooden brushes and spoons from fallen trees, or Mag’s knowledge of nettle, witch hazel, and willow bark, or the fact that she could make absorbent diapers. There was Jern’s dexterity with a knife and needle, crafting bandages and clothes from scraps. Arnold seemed to have a complete territorial map of the area in his head, all the way to Thunder Bay. And then there was fourteen-year-old Fariq, who made Rilla blush, and tracked the moon while he carried buckets of toothpaste water to be discarded away from the stream. Just now, he looked up from mending a shoe with thread and needle alongside Jern. His serious, dark brows unfurrowed as he smiled and nodded. Rilla nodded back, lifting her elbows from the bridge that overlooked the encampment to wave. Would they ever be seen past houselessness, or struggling with heroin, psychosis, schizophrenia, HIV, and more that Rilla hadn’t yet seen the impact of? She admired their togetherness and their skills, but quickly caught herself: They were worthy of care, belonging, food, shelter, and dignity—unconditionally.


Fariq waved to her, but it seemed sad, as if ‘goodbye’ in code. She had to go home, now. The sky was reddening. 


***


No one was home, which wasn’t unusual. As Rilla sat at the island on a bar stool, shelling pistachios, the kitchen saturated with orange light streaming in the windows. But Rilla stood to close the curtains as she did every evening: With her eyes closed, clearing shell residue from her teeth with her tongue. She didn’t want to see the sign across the street, today or any day, but just as she thought of it, the curtain clips clattered over the tension rod, and an alarming sound reverberated through the small townhouse. The evacuation order.


Rilla clamped her eyes shut and accidentally swallowed a sharp bit of shell. Her phone continued to siren, and the curtain clips seemed to reverberate their clanging in her teeth. She opened her eyes, just a crack, no wider than what was left of the burn in the ravine, and her gaze fell on the sign. One of those black and white, “Safer Ontario” signs filled with straight-faced, armed police officers in flapjackets. As the screen changed every day, it read abbreviated versions of, “Protecting Ontario neighbourhoods: Ontario is working to protect our neighbourhoods by tackling auto theft, clearing encampments, shutting down drug injection sites near schools and daycares, building more jails and strengthening the bail system, so criminals stay behind bars.”


Rilla winced, shook her head until dizziness blurred the image, and turned away.


“What do you think this means about remaining human, or finding the human spirit, in difficult times?” Mr. Wilcox had asked about Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. 


“To grieve, prepare, and breathe,” Rilla had replied, recalling the fascinating etymology of that word ‘spirit’: The breath of life, or of God. 


There was only fire to breathe, now. Breathing would be hard—speech even harder. But Rilla’s voice had never been loud, and maybe it wasn’t a speaking voice she needed, but a quiet, generative one to disrupt the silence she longed for. One that says: Witness.


In the distance, flames cast ghostly shadows on the underbelly of the clouds. They flickered through the curtains like the sun through closed eyelids. 


What if they didn’t receive the evacuation order? Rilla wracked her brain for a memory of anyone in the encampment with a phone. 


Her rage churned from grief in her stomach, like cheese from milk. She knew her dads would be texting her that they were coming, driving towards the meeting spot they’d chosen that morning: Under the sign. It stood on two thick concrete poles above the seesaw, a sentinel on two immovable legs. 


Parallel burns streamed down Rilla’s face as she grabbed her evacuation-ready bag and walked outside, grateful, now, for the tightness of the mask.


Do they have masks?


Out the front door, Rilla could see the flames licking the treetops in the hills. Fire isn’t survivable. Rilla knew that much. It can’t be breathed, digested, or burned inside the body. But she was sure that’s what her grief felt like. Only when she was safe would she cough up the ash of all that had burned behind her. 


The anticipatory grief, it seemed, wouldn’t burn into anything but a stream in a ravine. Rilla scanned the county road her house sat on. Across the street, to the left, was the playground and the sign. To the right was the lip of the ravine. Rilla closed her eyes so tight, they squeezed out ash and salt. Hardening is human, whether into the charred bone of death, or alive into the salty-sting of regret.


Of course, when Rilla opened her eyes, she ran back.



Resources:


Police Presence Has Increased on the TTC. But How Can We Truly Measure the Feeling of Safety?

by Wardah Malik for The 44 North, Contributing Writer - Politics


Police officers at the Union Station PATH entrance
Police officers at the Union Station PATH entrance

"While the feeling of safety is difficult to pinpoint, what is known is that many transit riders do not associate police with safety. " 

Half of Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) riders don’t feel safe using the system. At least, that’s the impression you might get scrolling through Councillor Brad Bradford’s (Beaches—East York) social media. He has made transit safety a major pillar of his mayoral campaign, arguing for increased regulation. His latest motion to place police officers at every station was approved in March. Despite overall crime rates declining, Councillor Bradford maintains that “safety isn’t defined by statistics in a spreadsheet. It’s about how people feel.” If that’s the case, how do we know whether increased police presence actually leads to greater safety? In other words, can the feeling of safety truly be measured?


On July 7, 2023, a graphic video of a man being stabbed inside a Toronto subway car circulated widely on social media. In the shaky footage, a passenger can be heard yelling, "Help him. He’s stabbing him up. He’s killing him.” The fear in the speaker's voice resonated with viewers, many of whom cite the incident, along with other viral videos depicting violent episodes on the TTC, as evidence in favour of increased security measures on the transit system. These videos and images, while useful for holding individuals accountable, also have the effect of creating an environment of heightened unease and judgment. Online forums, in particular, have contributed to this dynamic. “Oh, another one?” one user writes in response to a March stabbing. “More poverty, more problems,” says another. Although reductive, these comments reflect and reinforce broader conversations taking place beyond digital spaces. Incidents of violent crime are being treated as a marker of the TTC and are increasingly being used to advocate for stricter policing of public spaces. In an article for the National Post, Councillor Bradford writes, “It’s the indiscriminate nature of these incidents that stays with you, the fact that in a crowded vehicle or on a narrow platform, there is nowhere to go when trouble begins.” 


Toronto police presence on the TTC subway system, January 2023. Via CITYNEWS/Sean Toussaint
Toronto police presence on the TTC subway system, January 2023. Via CITYNEWS/Sean Toussaint

For Councillor Bradford, the high-profile incidents of recent years are not isolated events. Instead, they reveal a trend and serve as a warning for TTC riders: On your next commute, you could be the victim of an attack. While the TTC insists that this isn’t the case and hundreds of millions of trips go on every year “without incident,” its own data complicates that narrative. In a 2024 annual report, the TTC noted that Special Constables made 215 apprehensions under the Mental Health Act, an increase of 9% from the previous year. The report described these apprehensions as responses to “calls received for persons who were in distress or posed a threat to themselves or others.” A 2025 investigation by CBC and the Investigative Journalism Foundation adds to this, finding that the number of reported assaults on Toronto-area transit increased by 160 percent between 2016 and 2024. 



The rise of violence on the TTC is difficult to attribute to a single cause. However, many experts argue that these incidents signal an urgent need for better support services for people struggling with homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Often described as a microcosm of Toronto, the TTC reflects broader dynamics across the city and reproduces the tensions that exist beyond the platform. This means that high rental costs, overcrowded shelters and warming centers, and a growing housing affordability crisis will inevitably translate to more people using subways and streetcars as “makeshift bedrooms.” At the same time, the closure of supervised consumption sites has contributed to more visible drug use and discarded equipment across the TTC system. 

And although the TTC and the City of Toronto have taken action to minimize these impacts through the introduction of several programs (including community safety ambassadors and security officers), many argue that it’s simply not enough support. Frontline transit workers, specifically, have called for more overdose response teams, outreach and crisis workers, and mental health professionals to ease their burden and reduce the expectation that they act as social workers to counsel vulnerable riders and de-escalate emergencies. However, rather than responding more robustly to this call, Councillor Bradford and others who view policing as a means of creating a safer Toronto have opted to increase police presence. 


“We agree that the burden of responding to emergencies shouldn’t be placed on transit workers alone. However, we also know that police often escalate tensions on transit by, for example, harassing riders and using unnecessary force. Expanding police presence on the TTC contributes to a culture of fear within communities that are already overpoliced, such as racialized riders, Indigenous riders, immigrants, unhoused people, and people experiencing mental health crises,” Nico Nothwehr from the transit advocacy organization TTCRiders tells The 44 North. 


A case study by the Ontario Human Rights Commission reaffirmed these concerns, showing that Black people in Toronto were 3.25 times more likely to experience a Toronto Police Service check than White people. The study’s community consultations also called for greater investment in social programs rather than policing, arguing that reallocating funding toward community supports would create safer, healthier, and more equitable communities that are less reliant on police services. On the TTC, this could mean expanding community-based, health-focused responses that de-escalate emergencies and strengthen non-police mental health crisis services.


Past initiatives have already demonstrated the effectiveness of these approaches. For example, the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS), a free, confidential, 24/7 mobile mental health crisis response service that is available citywide to people 16 years of age and older, received more than 29,000 calls for service in 2024 and dispatched mobile crisis teams over 23,000 times across the city. Notably, 78 percent of calls transferred to TCCS by 911 were successfully resolved without any police involvement, demonstrating that non-police crisis response models can effectively support public safety while reducing unnecessary police interactions. 



Still, even as advocates and community organizations continue to call for expanded, permanent support services and raise concerns about overpolicing, the TTC has steadily increased police presence across its properties and vehicles since 2021, arguably in an effort to restore pre-pandemic ridership levels. However, this strategy hasn't necessarily made riders safer. That reality makes it difficult to believe that Councillor Bradford’s latest policy will do anything other than target the city’s most vulnerable residents to create an immeasurable feeling of safety for a select few. In fact, over time, this policy will likely do more harm than good. It risks normalizing an expanded police presence in public spaces and making people increasingly dependent on policing as the primary model of safety. 


While the feeling of safety is difficult to pinpoint, what is known is that many transit riders do not associate police with safety. Policy-makers mustn’t ignore this and, instead, use it to guide consultations and engagement with riders on what truly brings about community well-being. And although a new TTC safety plan to implement a crisis worker program is a step in the right direction, issues beyond the platform need to be addressed as well. For Nothwehr, “[T]he most effective solutions will be upstream—like increasing the number of dignified and accessible shelter spaces, building more supportive housing units that use a housing first approach, reopening supervised consumption sites, and increasing funding for mental health and addiction supports.”

Wardah Malik is a Toronto-based researcher, editor, and historian. She is the founder of Historyless Magazine, an independent publication covering global affairs and underreported political narratives. Her work spans media, human rights, and community-based research, including projects on press freedom, public health, and gender-based violence. Her research interests include governance, decolonizing language, and the preservation of underrepresented histories. Wardah holds an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge.


Why Libraries Are Vital Third Spaces, Featuring Dear TPL: The Passport Project

by Stephanie Ta for The 44 North

Co-Founder, The Toronto Public Library Passport Project


A black-and-white sketch of a public library
A black-and-white sketch of a public library
"The Toronto Public Library has supported people through moments that are deeply personal and often invisible. It has been there during unemployment, long study sessions, childhood afternoons, and later-in-life learning curves. These forms of support do not always get acknowledged."

On a beautiful summer day in July of 2024, I signed into our regular all-hands work meeting. Thirty minutes later, I signed off having learned that the full operations of the nonprofit we worked for would be closing its doors. We were all unemployed.


There was no dramatic buildup or warning, and it was strange how ordinary the information felt in the moment, even though everything was about to change. That kind of ordinariness sticks with you—it's a reminder that instability can creep up on you, even on beautiful summer days. 


It’s now 2026, and I still haven’t found long-term, permanent employment. Instead, I’ve juggled a long string of contracts. If I'm lucky, I have short roles and project-based work, meaning temporary positions with deliverable dates taking priority over purpose. This lifestyle has become familiar to zillennials in the questionable battlefield we call the workforce. With unpredictable employment crammed into long days and even longer nights, stability is an abstract concept; planning more than a few months ahead feels optimistic at best and foolhardy at worst.


It didn’t take long for me to realize how familiar my story is. Friends, colleagues, youth across the GTA, and hundreds of online strangers are all navigating similar realities. People are constantly moving between contracts, applications, side projects, and long stretches of waiting just to start. We’re all figuring out how to live without guarantees. Stability becomes less about things staying the same and more about knowing some places will still let you in. Life under capitalism means that we longingly emphasize our ability to own, control, and gain access. We yearn to have access—the type of access that means you don’t need to earn your right to exist in a space. You don’t have to be productive, successful, or certain. You can show up as you are, even when everything else feels in flux. 


This is the access we all dream about, which becomes grounding when nothing else feels secure or safe.


A model of the Riverdale branch of the Toronto Public Library, created from the pages of a book
A model of the Riverdale branch of the Toronto Public Library, created from the pages of a book

During this very unplanned and unwanted gap period, I found myself spending a lot of time on the internet. I consume endless information that rarely makes me feel better. Feelings of comparison and competition close in even though I’m spending less time with real human beings. I needed a place to break out of these four walls and constant reminders of not having a place to actually be. I needed somewhere that did not expect productivity or optimism; somewhere that would let me exist without pressure. A place that doesn't cost anything. I’m one of the lucky ones because a place like that does exist. For me, one of those places is the TPL or its government name: The Toronto Public Library.


Some days, I went to the TPL to locate Knitting for Dummies. Other days, I went when I needed quiet space with outlets and backsupport. Most days, I just need to leave the house. The library has always given me somewhere to land. 


The library has always been important to me. Even as a kid, it felt special. It’s a place where you can wander without a goal and still feel like you’re going on an adventure. Walking through the aisles feels a bit like walking through a candy store. Every shelf offers a new possibility. You stumble into topics you never planned to learn about. If you speak more than one language, the world inside the library feels even bigger.


A library card unlocks more than books. It gives you access to museums, art galleries, and city attractions. It lets you learn how to sew or borrow equipment you might not be able to afford on your own. It makes curiosity feel affordable and within reach. It invites and welcomes you back into community. 


Youth Engagement Scarborough participants gathered on stage
Youth Engagement Scarborough participants gathered on stage

Libraries are often described as quiet spaces, and they are. But they’re also places where people figure things out. For many, the library is one of the first public spaces they navigate independently. It’s where they print their first resume. It’s where they wait for friends after school. It’s where they sit without being told to buy something or move along. These moments are small, but they matter.


In my work with youth, I have seen how rare that kind of space is and how it’s continuing to dwindle. Many environments expect performance, progress, and answers. Libraries don’t. They allow people to exist while they are still becoming.


I know I’m not the only person who feels this way about libraries. So when my neighbour, Marisa, came to me with an idea, it immediately felt like something worth paying attention to.


Marisa told me about the unofficial Toronto Public Library passport—a passion project that encouraged people to collect stamps from each library branch they visited. As someone who moved to Toronto from the United States, Marisa discovered the library system as an adult. In many ways, she had explored more branches than people who grew up here. Her love for public access and community spaces made her wonder what the passport could become if it felt more intentional and reflective.


She asked if I wanted to help reimagine it, and of course, I said yes.


Stephanie on the steps of the Toronto Public Library’s Rivderdale branch in the winter
Stephanie on the steps of the Toronto Public Library’s Rivderdale branch in the winter

My background in nonprofit and social impact work meant I knew how to support a project like this. I knew how to coordinate people and move ideas forward. But it was my flexibility that made it possible. Contract work teaches you how to build things without waiting for perfect conditions. You learn how to make something real with what you have.


From the beginning, we were clear about one thing: This could not be a project about youth without youth being deeply involved. Too often, young people are asked to engage in ways that feel shallow. They are consulted after decisions are already made. They are invited to participate without being trusted to shape the work itself.


We wanted something different.


Youth volunteers were invited to visit their favourite branches not as researchers with scripts, but as community members. They talked to staff. They observed how people used the space. They noticed small details that are easy to overlook. They asked questions because they were curious, not because they were told to collect specific information.


What emerged were stories that felt real. They were not polished or uniform; they reflected how people actually experience the library.


One of the most meaningful parts of the project was the creation of branch-specific stamps. Designing a stamp sounds simple, but it requires people to think deeply about the place. What makes this branch feel like itself? What does it offer its neighbourhood? What stands out when you spend time there?


Turning those reflections into visual designs became a way of saying and emphasizing that their perspective mattered—not as a symbolic gesture, but in a real and tangible way.


This is what youth engagement can look like when it’s rooted in trust. Youth were not asked to represent an entire generation. They were not expected to perform expertise. They were invited to contribute as themselves.


Dear TPL: The Passport Project became our love letter to the Toronto Public Library. At a time when so much feels uncertain, it felt important to pay attention to the spaces that quietly support us. We wanted to capture what the library means to people and create room for reflection and memory.


Books stacked on top of a Toronto Public Library tote bag
Books stacked on top of a Toronto Public Library tote bag

Through Dear TPL, you’ll find a growing collection of stories, photos, and lived experiences from branches across the city. Youth and community volunteers documented moments that do not always appear in official histories. They focused on how spaces feel and why that feeling matters.

Creating something during a period of uncertainty can feel grounding. When the future feels distant or unclear, working on a project offers a way to stay present. Dear TPL was never meant to solve systemic problems. It was an act of care. A way of saying that these spaces mattered enough to be noticed.


The project is still growing, new stories are still being added, and youth are still encountering their local branches in meaningful ways. That ongoing nature feels right as libraries change alongside the communities they serve.


The Toronto Public Library has supported people through moments that are deeply personal and often invisible. It has been there during unemployment, long study sessions, childhood afternoons, and later-in-life learning curves. These forms of support do not always get acknowledged.


If Dear TPL does anything, I hope it encourages people to notice the spaces that support them and to share their own stories. For young people, especially, being trusted to help shape public memory is not just engagement; it is belonging. And sometimes, belonging is what keeps us going.


If you’d like to learn more or get involved—in Toronto or through the libraries in your city!—reach out to Stephanie here.

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