Tag Archives: summer solstice

#2705 – Summer Solstice

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I kill him not because I want him dead but because I want him eternal. For there to be a ghost story, after all, you must first make a ghost. Call them revenants, onryō, lemures, utukku, phi tai hong, whatever you like; the vengeful ghosts are always the strongest. Why otherwise would so many different cultures, separated across time and space, millennia and mountains and oceans, all develop their own mythology related to such entities? Why would they pass down so many cautionary tales for the prevention and avoidance of malevolent spirits, as well as such varied rituals for their placation, banishment, and exorcism? Because as long as man has lived and died upon this earth, so we have existed alongside our restless dead. We learned quickly that the dead who lingered longest were those cut down by violence or denied the proper burial rites. Most remain bound to this world until they can complete their final business, but some get so twisted up by rage they refuse to let the living have a moment’s peace ever again. They become myths in their own right, fueled not just by emotion but by their legend itself.

So I will kill him, and I will bury his heart beneath the floorboards, and I will weep nightly upon his unquiet grave so that he may never know a moment’s sleep. I will make such a ghost of him that he will haunt me until the end of days. This way nothing – not his fickleness, not his stubbornness, not even death – can ever truly part us.

#2621 – Summer Solstice

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The work takes him through the night and most of the next day; he sets down the last piece from the broken bed amid long shadows cast by a sinking sun. He has lost count of how many trips it took to carry every book from the library up the maintenance stairs to the roof, plus all the boards from the bookcases that lined its walls. Then it was the living room furniture, as much of it as he could break down, as well as the dressers and nightstands from the bedroom and the dining room table and chairs. He did not rest, did not pause once in his work, until he had lugged up as many of the apartment’s flammable goods as possible. Now his limbs tremble in protest, begging for a brief respite and threatening collapse should it not be given, but he is not done yet. 

Tanim carries his final and most precious burden up the stairs to the roof just as the sun’s last light sets and full darkness settles over the city. He lays his lover’s shroud-wrapped body gently atop the makeshift pyre, lingering for a moment to draw in the scent of blood, cigarettes, and metal one last time. Then he is uncapping a bottle of Everclear and soaking the shroud, the wood, using up every bottle of alcohol and lighter fluid from the apartment until the pyre’s broken boards gleam wet in the ambient glow of the city lights. 

He holds back the last few ounces of the final bottle of bourbon, staring into the amber liquid as he searches for words. Not the right words, necessarily, just any words, any at all, yet none will come. With the hard labor which kept him busy for so many hours now complete, Tanim has nothing to distract him from the aching emptiness in his heart. He opens his mouth, draws in a shaky breath… and when still no words come, merely sighs and downs the remaining bourbon in one long pull. Then he tosses the empty bottle aside and draws the dented silver lighter from his pocket. 

“I know I should say something, Daren,” Tanim mutters as he strikes the lighter and stares at the little flame. “I just, I don’t…” He clears his tightening throat and tries again, lifting his gaze to the recumbent form atop the pyre. “What the fuck am I supposed to say? Rest in peace? You’re in a better place now? At least you’re no longer in pain?” His laugh is a short, harsh thing, lips pulled back in more sneer than smile. “What good does that do you? Or me, for that matter? What good does any of this do us?”

As quickly as the anger flares in him, it dies again. Tanim’s sneer flickers out as he looks back down to the lighter in his hand and its steady, familiar flame. “I’m so tired, darling,” he murmurs. The admission breaks something inside him, or perhaps simply unlocks it, because suddenly he has to clench his jaw against the tears that blur his vision and the sob welling up in his throat. He could not speak now even if he had any words left worth voicing; instead, he tosses the lighter onto the soaked wood and falls hard to his knees as flames engulf the pyre. The crackle and roar of the growing fire cannot quite mask the sound of his howling. 

#2568 – Summer Solstice 2022

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Recipe for a Summer Solstice

Ingredients

2 oz Lock Stock & Barrel 16 Year Straight Rye Whiskey
1 oz Averna amaro
100 mg hydrogen cyanide
2 dashes Angostura bitters
2 dashes orange bitters
1 brandied cherry

Instructions

  1. Add rye whiskey, amaro, bitters, and hydrogen cyanide into a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled. 
  2. Strain into a chilled crystal coupe glass. 
  3. Garnish with a brandied cherry. 
  4. Serve to the man you love as an evening cocktail. 
  5. In the sixty seconds or so you have before the poison hits his respiratory system, take the empty glass from his hand and set it carefully aside. Lift his hand to your lips and kiss his knuckles. Run your thumb along his sharp jawline. For once, resist the urge to kiss him on those thin, sardonic lips.
  6. Tell him you forgive him. You forgive him for wanting to leave, for not trusting you, for not understanding. You forgive him for having less faith than you. Tell him it’s okay. Tell him none of that matters now. Do not kiss him.
  7. Don’t worry when his eyes dart to the empty glass and you watch understanding dawn in their dark depths. It’s too late anyway. By now his hands have begun to tremble as he fights to draw a full breath; he could hardly pull a knife on you, let alone with his usual skill.
  8. Catch him as the first seizure hits and lay him gently on the white carpet. You are not cruel. You chose cyanide for its efficiency, not just because you were loath to ruin good alcohol with a wretched tasting poison. Though cyanide doesn’t offer an easy death, it does offer a swift one. 
  9. When it is done, arrange his crumpled form into a more natural position. He could almost be sleeping, though not even in sleep have you ever seen him so relaxed, so vulnerable. So empty. Kiss his forehead (or if you are very careful, his slack mouth).
  10. Pour yourself a glass of bourbon and relax. Everything is perfect now. You are together and nothing can change that. Nothing can take him from you now. Everything is finally perfect.

#2447

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“I can’t,” you beg, “not this time, not again, there has to be another way,” and I’m trying not to wallow in your agony like a voyeur, truly, it’s just been so long since he last touched you with such tenderness, cruel hands gone soft to cup your tear-stained face, but you both know the refusal, too, is part of this passion play and the kiss you share is not a blessing for the present but an absolution for the future. Still, he holds you close and kindly does not command you to end his life before the disease rotting him from the inside does, and at least for a brief time you can be miserable together instead of apart. Between the bloodshed and bereavement I’d almost forgotten moments like this were even possible. For both your sakes (and mine?) I will not yet count the days until the solstice. I, too, can be kind.

#2370 – Summer Solstice

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You are a more valuable lover to me dead and gone than alive and in my arms. I would rather mourn the person you might have had the possibility of becoming than have daily to face who you really are. You are awful, do you know that? You are cruel and selfish and fickle. It was attractive once, that danger, that heartbreak, but now it is simply tiring. I am tired of begging you to stay. I am tired of the inevitable disappointment when you don’t. I am tired of being left behind.

So I am not asking this time. If you keep making the wrong choice I have no option but to take choice itself away. You brought this on yourself, darling. Why couldn’t you just stay for once?

You are a terrible person but you will make a lovely corpse.

#2269 – Summer Solstice

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True Black Tarot

Some say revenge is a dish best served cold. Others say the best revenge is a life well lived. These claims, however, are in actuality both quite inadequate. I have taken revenge countless times, in every manner possible and with every kind of weapon, and I therefore can state with confidence that the most satisfying revenge is intimate. A razor to the throat; a blade to the breast; a knife to the back. The sort of sharp, bloody end most fitting for traitors and cowards, those whose betrayal has cut you to your very core. You want to hold your victim in your arms so you feel the moment his strength finally fails. You want to hear the blood bubbling in his throat as he struggles to breathe. You want to hold his gaze as he dies so in his final moment he knows you did not forget and will not forgive. It is like a dance, two partners entwined, heartbeat to heartbeat, and then the knife. It always ends with the knife.

You ask why the Moon killed the Sun but never why the resurrected Sun in turn killed the Moon. Did he really do so to restore balance to the world, as the story says? To complete the cycle of sacrifice and usher in glorious summer? Perhaps. It gives a nice symmetry to the mythology, doesn’t it? Death for life and life for death. But maybe that’s just the fairy tale version where everything has a purpose and everyone a happy ending. Maybe that’s nothing more than a lovely lie.

Maybe the truth is that the Sun killed the Moon simply for the sweet satisfaction of revenge.

#1954 – Summer Solstice

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The apple. The pomegranate. His hand.

The dance.

Chest to chest, hip to hip as if one heartbeat, as if one breath
(step, turn, step)
hand to the small of the back and fingers trailing over stiff linen
(step, turn, dip)
and then the bite of the blade, too sharp to even hurt
(step, turn, step)
red drops on white carpet, rose petal wrists
(step, turn, step)
arm sliding around narrow waist, mouths bruising
(step)
then the blade to bare throat with merciful speed
(turn)
and gentle hands amid the red river
(dip)
lay him down.

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[ Read the other solstice fragments. ]

#1948

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the solstice approaches and every night now i dream him dead or dying, your arms a cradle, your arms a cage, are you tired of watching your lover die? because i am tired of watching your lover die, i am tired of offering my tears and my breath and my blood but with what else can you send the moon on his journey into darkness, how can you not weep and tear out your hair? it is astounding how each time feels like the first and only, how a heart can break and break and break again and again and again and still be agony, devastation, and I do not blame you if you are tired of watching your lover die because i watch each time as well, and i am very tired

#1781 – Summer Solstice 2016

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Standing in the bedroom doorway, frozen: Tanim. Laying on the bed within, languid and smiling: Daren. Between them: the heady, noxious odor of gasoline.

“What’s going on?” Tanim asks slowly, taking in the glistening bed sheets, the soaked carpet. Daren lifts his arm to take a drag on the cigarette balanced between two long fingers; his wet clothing clings to his thin frame. “It’s so easy to mold the mind of a madman, isn’t it?” he replies as idly as if commenting on the weather.

“What are you talking about?” White-knuckled, Tanim grips the doorframe as if torn between running and coming closer. “What have you done?” Daren exhales a stream of smoke and blinks dreamily. “I think you know.”

“Come out of there,” Tanim extends a hand, frowning, and steps over the threshold. His shoes sink into the wet carpet. “Careful,” Daren waves the cigarette back and forth, the embers carving light trails in the dark. “I wouldn’t take another step forward if I were you.” He waits until Tanim has eased back before asking, “Does it anger you, that I got to it before you could?”

“You’re not making any sense, darling,” There is a note of pleading in Tanim’s voice, but Daren continues as if his lover hasn’t spoken. “What were you planning, anyway?” he wonders aloud. “A gun? Poison? Or perhaps something more intimate, like your bare hands?”

“You won’t know now, will you?” Tanim’s scowl is sudden and dark, his teeth bared like a predator whose prey has been stolen. Daren only sighs. “My loss, yes.” He holds his arm out over the side of the bed, dangling the cigarette between two limp fingers. His gaze is quite clear now, no longer lethargic and amused, but the smile remains as he locks eyes with Tanim. “You might want to run now, beloved,” he advises.

Tanim runs. Daren lets the cigarette fall.

[ Read all of the solstice fragments so far. ]

#1606 – Summer Solstice

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A living room in an apartment in a dark city of glass and steel. Battle lines drawn, Daren standing rigid on one side and Tanim the other. Interrogator and suspect.

“So what will it be?” Daren’s voice flat, arms crossed. “Have you decided?”

“Yes.” Tanim averts his eyes. Answer enough.

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you.” Daren scowls, disgust in the curl of his lip, the narrowing of his dark eyes.

“It’s complicated.” Tanim’s hands open and close at his side as if grasping for words. Daren doesn’t allow him time to find them.

“Complicated!” A short, harsh laugh. No humor in it, only mockery and pain. “Oh yes, you would say that, after the promises you made.”

Tanim, head flying up, “I never promised–”

“Please.” Daren’s hand cuts the air between them. “Lying doesn’t become you, darling. If you respect me at all, you’ll at least forgo deception.”

“…fine.” Tanim’s shoulders slump, eyes turn away again. “I was wrong, and for that I am sorry. I thought we could fight this. I thought we could change the ending. But we can’t.” A glance up, beseeching, hopeful of understanding if not acceptance. “It’s a cycle, we both know that. It’s necessary–”

“Don’t tell me she made you do it!” Daren’s voice louder than ever before, teeth bared and finger pointed in accusation.

“What else would you have me do?” Anger now in Tanim’s raised voice as well, an animal backed into a corner.

“I would have you choose me!” A step forward, snarling, all threat in the lithe form. “Or at least own your sin, you coward!”

Chaos, then. One lashes out first, or maybe the other. Fists falling, fingers clawing at flesh, raking eyes, brawn versus speed. Then the slim little blade, always somewhere on his person, and Tanim leaps back with a cry of pain. Blood running down his arm, down the knife gripped in Daren’s hand. One heartbeat in between; before Tanim reaches, before the thunder. Before Daren, mouth open in silent shock, looks down to the blood stain spreading quickly across his chest.

He falls before Tanim can catch him.

Blood washes away battle lines. Tanim kneels, the gun forgotten, the argument likewise but for the glaze of rage and disappointment in Daren’s eyes. Blood on his lips, he finds energy enough to draw breath, hiss, “This was your choice and no other’s.” Another breath, shallower. “Remember that.” And a final one, a struggle but he manages. “I do not forgive you.”