The Spear Cuts Through Water

by Simon Jimenez

“The old men would have you believe it shook out one way. That the road was but pain and glory. Sometimes, perhaps, life whittles itself down to these essences. Sometimes there is nothing we can do but sit in it.” She took a long drag and blew gray smoke up into the ceiling, where it lived like an opaque and swirling cloud of shape and texture. “But listen well when I tell you that your father, and your granjo, are wrong.” What were they wrong about? you asked. She shrugged. “This is a love story to its blade-dented bone.”

How they were molded by the world they had been given, for even the man who had started it all did not know why he made the choices he did. It is all a spiral that feeds into itself with the gathering weight at the center we call Power.

Jun looked over at Keema, and Keema looked over at Jun. “I would’ve won,” Keema said. “If we had ever had a proper duel. Fully rested. I would’ve won.” Jun smiled. “Fuck off,” he said, which, to Keema’s ears, had the same melody as I love you.

And I died