The Spear Cuts Through Water

by Simon Jimenez

Before you arrive, you remember your lola, smoking.

2nd person >>>

This spear.

*screaming*

This is the tale of your land, And the spear that cut through it.

Jun’s six-month rotation, spent alone in the cold and the dark of that deep mountain cavern with nothing but one’s blade, and one’s thoughts, and a locked door to protect, to keep one company.

I remember why I liked him now he reminds me of Jude from There Will Come a Darkness

How he coaxed the papers out of your lola’s grip. Her chest rising and falling in deep breaths. You thought something was wrong with her, that she was sick, but you were yet young—you had never seen her nervous before.

10th grade me was too stupid to fully understand

You thought she was teaching you not to be rude, as was lola’s job. But not this time. This time, she was teaching you how to survive.

Hear the drums fill the theater—

Like Anton hearing Jude's esha

They fought for nothing, which is why you see yourself in them.

Fathers leave in all sorts of ways. Some of them leave in the dark. Some leave only in their heads, while their bodies remain, staring at the world around them forever distantly. Others fade out over time, like an old photo rubbed raw. Many, gone in an instant.

“I have lived a long time,” she said. “And the longer I live, the more it surprises me, and saddens me, how wise the young must become to live in this world.”

“HE’S DEAD! LUUBU IS DEAD! THE BOWL OF HEAVEN HAS BEEN DROPPED FROM HIS FINGERS!”

LABUBU IS DEAD

“You are Luubu,” Keema said, dry-mouthed.

Gosh darn it

Every bite brought me closer to a kind of…becoming.” He shut his eyes. “I hear them all now. The tortoises’ messages. Their memories. I can even smell what they smell. The silver fear that lifts from the people’s shoulders. Their red fury. Father really fucked up, didn’t He?”

Why does this kinda give Gideon the 9th vibes?

“Yes. A most urgent business, Mother. Because now that I’ve had the taste of one god, I find myself hungering for something a bit more substantial.” He looked up at me with wide eyes. “I think I’m going to eat you.”

Don't you hate it when your son tries to eat you?

I heard him call the Daware man’s name. The Daware man was on a skiff he had cut free from Luubu’s disintegrating ship. The Daware man called his name back. If one listened, one could hear it in their voices. One can tell a lot, even in such a state, by the way someone speaks another’s name.

The stories are everywhere, you cannot avoid them. Every day you tell a story to yourself; the details of your day become a part of your myth. It is reordered. It is made sense

You see them enter through the back. They look a bit different from what you expect, both a bit shorter, Jun the shorter of the two; they are two aisles away from where you sit, and the shadow and light of the theater are such that it is hard to pick out the finer details of them, but you know Jun by his tattoo, which burns in this sacred place like some demonic sigil, the ink glowing an unearthly red as it reacts to the spirit currents that blow through the theater. You, the audience, are pin-drop silent as the two young warriors are led up the stage, where this moonlit body awaits them.

I need this book to be real so badly

The language of another time seeps in, infecting him. It’s FUCKING STUPID. No. I will not sacrifice my—you will not have my body. YOU WILL NOT! Jun, get up—Jun, why do you bow to these people? They are—we were—and then he stops, as the memory of the Comosa River and the cave pours into his mind,

The Anton and Jude vibes are too strong

You tell him that most days you do not think of the Old Country at all. That it would be a lie to say that you hold the place close to your heart, that your ancestors speak to you in any profound whisper of the spirit. You tell him that all you have are some stories, and some carpets. A Daido your father carved out of rock that your brother tried to sell, with no luck, to a man who didn’t care.

I'm crying why am I crying?

You bow. You hold out Araya’s spear. Offering it to him. And you tell him yes.

And you watch the end.

This is gonna be rough I can feel it

And I asked him if he would dance with me. When Jun took his hand, Keema wanted to laugh, because for his whole life he wished he was brave enough to ask this question, and in the end it was so easy. The meeting of their hands seeming almost inevitable.

:(

And we thought the movements together, and we expressed with our bodies that same thought. We were not ourselves anymore but each other, speaking through our bodies to a wounded and grieving land. And what we said was this: The body holds the body. The arms hold the spear. And the spear cuts through water.

You wondered, as you gave the spear to Keema, why it was you who was chosen to be representative of all the descendants; why you, whose connection to the Old Country was tenuous and variable at best—and, in some essential way, poisoned, considering your heritage. But perhaps now you understand that you are not a representative. That like the spear’s journey through time, much of this dance is dictated by chance. You are merely, crucially, no one but yourself, as anyone else is themselves—mere stewards, gifting recursively over the divide of time this spear, that memory, to the people and the place from which they had come—and who, in turn, gift back to you your strange, and sad, and wide-eyed futures.

“I thought this was a love story,” you say.

“Do you think they can see us now? Are they performing this moment onstage?” “I do not know,” Keema said in a distant way, his arm locking around Jun’s waist. “Would you stop, if they were?” “No,” Jun said firmly. “They have already seen my life. They have seen my most shameful moments.” The pained look in his eyes quickly faded as he gazed into Keema’s. “Why would I deny them one of my most beautiful?”

I love this book so freaking much

That is where we end our tale. With the dancers leaping over the fire. And this moonlit body, bowing to you in thanks.