The Spear Cuts Through Water

by Simon Jimenez

Sometimes, perhaps, life whittles itself down to these essences. Sometimes there is nothing we can do but sit in it.”

“This is a love story to its blade-dented bone.”

“It didn’t,” Jun said, “it didn’t mean anything.” I was lying. “You’re lying?” Yes. “Fuck.” That was all Jun said as he hopped over the stream and walked away from Keema. Keema was a bit amused. His heart was also beating fast. He said he was lying.

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. I had hoped this was a love story. You say it with shame, embarrassed at having said it, wishing you could take it back. You say it, worried that you have betrayed some secret part of yourself that does not wish to be exposed—an old gremlin in you, sick and yearning.

High up. Above the trees. Where the stars dance and fall like failed incantations. That is where we end our tale. With the dancers leaping over the fire. And this moonlit body, bowing to you in thanks.