Bucket of Snakes

I love them both dearly.

Hamster

I met my friend Hamster during my senior year of high school, after moving to a new province and starting over at a new school. It’s been about three years now.

I noticed her almost immediately. She was quiet, reserved, and seemed to keep to herself. We sat across the classroom from each other in Contemporary Indigenous Studies, so it took us a while to actually start talking.

I’ve been into photography for as long as I can remember. Nature, wildlife, people, culture—if I can point a camera at it, I probably will. A local powwow was coming up (her family’s powwow), and I’d never been to one before. I didn’t know the proper etiquette, and instead of Googling it, I decided to ask Hamster.

She’s Native, so I figured she’d know better than the internet, also I really wanted to talk to her.

That conversation broke the ice and we added each other on instagram. Before long we were messaging all the time, mostly about anime, and somehow we just clicked.

I admitted to her recently—much to my embarrassment—that when I first went to the powwow, I had no idea how to pronounce her name. I’ve got it down now, though. Trust.

That first powwow is still one of my favorite memories. Hamster looked absolutely stunning in her jingle dress. I had the privilege of photographing her while she danced, and I even got to join the intertribal dance myself.

Her family has always welcomed me with open arms. They even took me to Seattle to see Sisters of Mercy, which is a concert I’ll never forget.

We’ve had countless mall trips, sleepovers, and late nights bonding over Roblox and manga. I can always count on Hamster to call 911 whenever I have a secret scheme.

I love her endless voice memos, the terrible photos she takes of me just to tease me, and how incredibly dedicated she is to her studies. Playing Roblox with her and her younger siblings is always chaotic in the best possible way.

I’m incredibly grateful she’s my friend.

Fish

Meeting Fish, on the other hand…

…was complete chaos.

Picture the dish pit during a late-night dinner rush.

I’d already worked there for a while, and this was the first time meeting the new dishwasher. I took one look at him and immediately thought, Oh God. Another emo.

I was fully expecting a walking Tumblr stereotype.

Thankfully, I was very, very wrong.

Our first shift together was an absolute disaster. Dishes were piling up faster than we could wash them, the clock was working against us, and even with our powers combined, that dish pit won.

By the end of the night we were sweaty, exhausted, and desperately ready to go home.

Nothing bonds two people quite like surviving a catastrophe together.

We started walking home after work, and those walks turned into hours of talking. We exchanged lore, trauma dumped probably a little too early into the friendship, and somehow became inseparable.

Since then we’ve accumulated an absolutely ridiculous amount of shared lore.

An unreasonable amount of vomit.

Face-first in the snow.

Walking barefoot down the road at 3 a.m.

Fat Boys.

Watching each other survive overdoses.

And somehow, despite all of it, still finding reasons to laugh.

Fish is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and an incredibly talented artist. Through some of the hardest moments of my life, he’s been my rock.

Them

My friendships with Hamster and Fish couldn’t be more different.

One started with a conversation about powwow etiquette and turned into years of adventures, roblox, and long conversations.

The other began in the middle of a dish pit apocalypse and somehow evolved into one of the strongest friendships I’ve ever had.

They’re wildly different people, but they have one thing in common: they’ve changed my life for the better.

I genuinely don’t know who I’d be without either of them.

I love you both.