The Spear Cuts Through Water

by Simon Jimenez

I realized that I was standing beside the bravest person I would ever know in this life and I craved to be held by her.

as if two hands had shoved him off the edge of the last precipice of this world, his spirit crashing through the heavenly bands, the banners of color and sound that lay like sediment between these choruses, until he dropped into the churning waters of the Sleeping Sea, where upon the cold detonation of its surface he scattered, like pieces of a dropped porcelain plate, into the hours that bind our days,

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

The dancer had come out from the wings only to fall as soon as they had emerged. And there, to the side of it all, the body remains, unmoving and unattended, as the tale continues. The corpse ever in view on the stage boards.

“I thought the emperor was all-powerful.” Jun nodded. “So did He,” he said.

I have not lived well. I have much to make up for. So I follow Her, in the hope that I might find some measure of redemption. This is what I live for now. This road will likely end in my death, but there is no other road for me.”

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.

They fought because it was the easiest language they spoke.

You told him that everything can shriek, or laugh, or weep—that there was more to this world than what human eyes could see, and ears could hear.

“You have my condolences for this loss, warrior.” She bowed her head. “I hope that their end was mighty.” “I’ve yet to witness an end that was,” he said.

Blame is an endless circle. And I seemed to be standing in the center of it.

You can fault the dancer, but more often than not, it is the dance itself that has to change.

He would feign disinterest. He would nurse a colorful envy.

But on you go. Your movements automatic as you live through each day and sleep through each night. You know what it is to be alone. You’ve been too scared to be anything else.

A hand shoved his back and he went staggering forward, dizzy from the heat and the noise, and he tipped and began to fall, the gravity of the drop lifting his stomach, the sweat curling up over his forehead, and once he fell, he would be kicked dead by this overwhelming world and he was okay with that because this was how it was always going to end for someone like him, trampled underfoot by people who didn’t give a shit, and I thought, Maybe if I just land on my face and break my nose through my skull I could finally get some goddamn rest.

Keema asked the elk what they were traveling away from, to which the elk replied that there were things that sat along the edge of heaven, born from the darkest fissures within the earth, whose lives were spent in waiting for someone to follow their scent; waiting for someone to walk up and fall into their arms.

You tell him that you wish things were different. That you feel as though you have a sack over your shoulder, heavy and dragging, but you have no idea what’s inside the sack, or who gave it to you. It’s just there. It’s just yours. And you regret so many things. You’ve hurt people, you’ve embarrassed them, you’ve embarrassed yourself. You have made so many wrong turns that it’s a wonder that you’re still walking. It has been a strange life.

Even if nothing changed; if it all played out the same way. Would you want this life?

But this time, amongst the whispering dead that chant from the dark, you hear other voices, our voices, voices whose tone and timbre are stitched to your memory, no matter how long ago your last meeting may have been—for that, after all, is the nature of family. We are never far. And we are here, ready to help end this story.

We were not ourselves anymore but each other, speaking through our bodies to a wounded and grieving land.

The body holds the body. The arms hold the spear. And the spear cuts through water.

“You are running out of time, Daware man.”

Why am I still here? Why am I still ugly?” His voice was wracked, almost indecipherable. “What reward is this? What punishment?” “I do not know if this is a reward,” Keema said. “Or if it is a punishment. But maybe it is neither.” He pressed his forehead against Jun’s. The heat immense. Alive. “Maybe you are just here.”

there was no fear, no anger in these warriors’ hearts, for as they looked at each other in the full moonshine of that night, they saw that they did not need the power of a god to understand how deeply they were wanted.

“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?”