The Spear Cuts Through Water

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

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.

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

This body holds the body. This arm holds the spear. And the spear cuts through water.

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 of.

If on 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.

Keema stepped toward Jun, and touched him. His arm, his bony cheek, his lips, and Jun received that touch as he would the water from a waterfall, with eyes closed and face upturned. "You feel like the sun," Jun said.

Some days you are so alone, you think you will collapse into a hard and dense rock. 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.

From far away, the laughter was a crackle of noise, like some distant fireworks lit in honor of a hero’s passing—and up close, it was almost overwhelming, a bright and wincing joy that would make one realize there is no correct way to shake hands with pain.

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

They fought because it was the easiest language they spoke.

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.

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.

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

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 the longer I live, the more it surprises me, and saddens me, how wise the young must be to live in this world.

even I cannot deny how difficult it can be, to accept that sometimes, to survive, we must change our course.

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

People died so that we could live. Others suffered so that we may prosper. That is the way of the world. To believe otherwise is to never grow up.

One day in the endless loop of history, in the circular currents of its water, where there was no future, and no past, these steps would be inscribed in the shaft of an antique wooden weapon, and would tell the tale of these two warriors.

His voice is small when he says, out loud, “I was so close.” He is looking at Jun when he says this. Jun refuses to look at him; he knows that if he does, he will change his mind. Keema is looking at Jun and he is crying. I was so close.

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.

There is no correct way to shake hands with pain.

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

And Keema realized it was not sweat that poured down Jun's chin, but tears, for finally, in the calm of this syncopation, we were quieted, the river cleaned of bodies, the knife taken out of a child's back, and a cold rain falling on the burning house, until the hand in the window slipped away and all that remained was smolder.

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.

One might think it amazing that in face of such overwhelming evidence, no effort was made to save themselves. But though I cannot help but wish that when the world quirks and shudders, we have the wherewithal to listen, even I cannot deny how difficult it can be, to accept that sometimes, to survive, we must change our course.

With a wave of this body’s hand all the braziers are snuffed out in this Inverted Theater. The movement is sudden, as is the disappearance of the light, the darkness you are submerged in so complete you can feel it as a presence that surrounds you, blocking sight of even your own hand. It is not so much an absence as it is an overwhelming smog. You can feel it in your chest. The tightness of your breath. The darkness is closing in on you. Such was the quality of night in the Old Country, or what they then knew as the true dark, which, when the sun fell from its daily perch, was total and unyielding. What else could they have hoped for, with no moon in the sky?

I was young when the weapon fell from the sky. I was young when my country was ended, on the whim of a bastard.