The Spear Cuts Through Water

by Simon Jimenez

for there is no barrier in this life that love cannot overcome.

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

And it was then that a kind of messaging passed between them; in their locked and silent gaze a tightening of the first knot of trust; a contract,

It would become a thing he could return to in his mind when he pleased, elaborating on the details, giving life to the still image, and in this way it would become his, for this was the fate of all fantasy.

Your father was gone in one willful movement, and you heard a small snip, somewhere inside of yourself, which was the sound of your life untethered from this earth.

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.

But the truth of the matter was they fought because Jun was grieving and Keema was terrified and Jun was exhilarated and Keema was joyful and Jun was exhausted and Keema was repulsed. They fought because it was the easiest language they spoke.

And then, without notice, Jun put his palm against Keema’s chest. The Peacock’s hand remained there for a moment longer than Keema expected it to, on the hot and sweat-damp skin, trapping under its palm the rapid beat of Keema’s heart, before that hand shoved him away without ceremony. Keema, wide-eyed, tripped backward over one of the benches. He fell on his ass. In the mess of netting, he began to laugh.

Keema glanced at Jun, and it surprised him how much comfort he found in the other’s gaze,

“I hope that their end was mighty.” “I’ve yet to witness an end that was,”

“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.”

It was said that a fisherman was never lost, for he had two homes—his village, and his Gathering—and he was never far from either. No matter how far he rowed, you said, he was never lost.

We didn’t see the point in being grave about it all. If you know what’s coming, then what’s the value in being miserable about it?

bright and wincing joy that would make one realize there is no correct way to shake hands with pain.

“No matter how long you do something,” she said, “you can always fuck it up.”

Neither spoke; Jun far away and Keema wondering where he was but not knowing how to ask, for there had been so few opportunities in his life to practice such kindness.

He wanted to show Jun this side of him. He wanted to stand up and reach out and offer Jun his hand and ask him if he would like to dance. But he was afraid, and in fear he could find no words to pull out of his parched throat.

“I swear to watch over you, Jun of No Tribe, for the next few hours while you sleep. I swear to protect you from any spirit or animal or living or dead thing that may mean you harm or mischief. I swear you will wake up again, and I swear that you will be rested.” “One of your famous oaths,” Jun said lightly, but Keema could tell that he was moved by it, by the way he wouldn’t look at him. As if defeated, Jun fell onto his back and shut his eyes. “Fine. At least I know that if you fuck this up you have to disembowel yourself.” “I hope that brings you much comfort as you sleep.” “Oh. It does.” They were both grinning.

He wondered what it would be like to run his finger along those lips, and then, ashamed that his mind had been so distracted, he returned to his task.

If only there were a way to prolong the inevitable. If only there were a way to hold a moment in your hands and keep it alive forever.

But nothing, and no one, lives forever. Not even gods. We are mighty, but we are not invulnerable. Death simply must work harder to catch us—another

I would rather there were no Moon at all.

It's interesting how a big theme of this book is pride. The moon goddess is driven again and again by her pride and her wish to be exalted by humans. Despite pride resulting in her biggest failures, it still steers her compass, a seemingly fatal flaw she cannot escape from.

“If you see a guy in a palace mask,” he said tiredly, “tell him I’m looking for him.”

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

And even now it remains hard for me to determine how I feel about the men who had sprung from me—what to do with my deep hatred, and my bottomless love, for them.

No, I did not care for Jun because I saw so much of myself in him. To look at him frustrated me. The pathetic sound of his cries frustrated me. He was weak and he was stubborn and his heart was vice. But in that cavern he told me he would never kill again, and he did so in a way that gave me something I had not had since I could not remember when. It gave me hope. Hope that things could be different.

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.

And I wondered at myself, and why I had ever thought to hurt this beautiful person, or the world he lived in. Looking at him, I wondered at the things that I had done.

I thought how strange it was that I ever feared the end. That I had ever tried to escape it. And like that, it was done. My hand releasing from its fist. The battle fought. The life slipped from this old tether.

They may not have been lovers, but when Jun returned from relieving himself and made a comment about the delicious smell, it pleased Keema in a fluttery way that Jun was pleased,

I thought he had died in the Bowl when that spout of water took him. When I saw him again, bringing us an escape boat from that sinking ship, I was almost knocked out from relief. I had the urge to hold him. I could not stop staring at him. It felt as though I were in a dream, to be sharing breakfast with him now.

“Our thoughts,” Keema said. “We can hear each other,” Jun said.

But you know as well as any guilty party that no one thought stands alone. That there is a city within you, populated by both high- and lowborn beliefs, interjections, prayers, rantings.

And sometimes you wonder, even now, if maybe your mind has a mind of its own.

And in that tangle of theirs, which they had found themselves in after Jun had caught him, their hands on or near each other’s chests, they could feel the beat of the other’s heart. The rhythm of it.

They shut their eyes. They silenced their minds. They listened to the Rhythm. They could feel the strength of the wood that composed the towering gate. The rope bindings and the mighty cogs that turned with the wheel. They could feel the hours and days and weeks that went into this gate’s construction. They could feel the pulse and ache of the trees that were cut down from the forest to the north. The ageless sunlight once imprinted on their branches. They could feel the years, and the life, of this object, which to them in their mode of focus breathed just as deep as the humans that stood on top of it. The wood had flex, and tension. It bled energy.

During the ride, Keema would look at Jun. There was nothing I wanted to say to him in particular. My eye traveled to his masked face of its own accord. And sometimes Jun looked back, and Keema would feel a little kick in his stomach that he would nurse with some tired pleasure.

Their shoulders bounced together. And in their heightened state such contact was like the meeting of two exposed wires.

He pressed gently into Keema’s side; Keema pressed back. They sat together with elbows touching, with lightning on their skin.

Like before, to Keema, the rock was a thing that was a part of him, as was the cave and the winds outside and even the other body who stood before him. To pull on the rock was to flex a muscle he did not know existed until today. It started drifting toward him. He was calling it home.

this trivial pursuit of glory, and he thought maybe that was why he wanted it so bad, because it didn’t matter at all.

They swung at each other. But they soon found that none of their hits would connect. They could read each other too well.

Both of them too caught up in the movement to realize that the fight had instead become a dance as they leapt and grabbed at and pulled under and over. A strange dance, out of time, from another place entirely, pirouettes and side slides, alien to anyone who might’ve witnessed it, but they were quite alone in that hollow, there was no one to question or to wonder; there was only the two of them, in movement, Jun’s hand sneaking out from behind, squirming up Keema’s chest like a snake until it stopped just above the heart, and held its beat. Jun’s lips behind Keema’s neck, breathing; and they stood there like that, against each other. Just breathing.

They assuaged their guilty consciences by telling themselves that their actions have been written into the fabric of the world long before they had come into it. Moral responsibility gave way to the needs of destiny.

One cannot go charging headfirst into battle; heart alone will not win

the day; the warrior who does not plan, plans to fail.

Redemption was out of our reach, but we could at least step toward it, and if we died on that long road, then all the better, for everyone.

Jun refuses to look at him; he knows that if he does, he will change his mind.

He surprises you when he asks you if you are proud to be of its people.

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.