the ritual

between hours, the permafrost felt so thick. we had intentionally stacked the dirt upon itself and placed it beneath our feet— right there in a mini fridge of our own design, right by the expired dumplings and bottom-shelf tequila.

it was our religion to build it there, out of fear of what would become of us had we let the inevitable spring take us hostage. we knew the gods would wreak havoc on the crops. and the harvested grain would spread disease in our bellies, grow rot in our chests. so we sustained our own famine. turned where we stood to stone. froze the twilight lands we shared, bound by permanent expectation. after all, hunger is much easier to stomach than soured desire.

but sometimes we waited a few extra minutes before the ritual. among endless conversations of duty and tradition, we’d let the pauses between sentences linger in the chilled air. we’d toil over dissonant aspirations. we’d confess to past crimes. and between us, we’d share glances of tantalizing transgression. 

distracted, we had allowed ourselves to leave small imprints on our creation— enamored. because our curiosity begged us to let the soil soften beneath the soles of our feet, even just a little. 

clandestine, then, we dared to twitch our toes in the beginning sequences of a waltz on the sacred earth. 

foolish, we were only children. so scared of the summer we could spend together and the forbidden heat it promised. with each temptation to step, i reminded myself: there was too much work to be done, too much glory in abstinence. we would gather the fruits of our patience later. we would eat from our labor later. perhaps, later, a year from now in different company. the right company. on paid-in-full antique porcelain plates draped over silk sheets. 

by may, it had become increasingly difficult for us to control our wonder. to ignore the buzz aching within our thighs to prance, messily, fully submerged in mud and the primordial disease. to not turn the land into an unmade bed. into a beastly feast. into unabashed touch. to not let ourselves pluck out and eat cold cardboard worms, and fist out and adorn dormant roots. 

it was then i drew up lonesome plans for distant travel. 

i knew that it was too dangerous for the both of us to stay here, unattended to. cold, unwatched and un-surveilled. i knew that we could no longer be trusted with the sanctity of ourselves, of this land, of this freezing room. and i was certain that he, too, grew as tired of its chill as i had. and i did not know if i wanted to pretend that any of this, what we had created here was real anymore. 

one night he waited eagerly, as my hands began to quietly scratch at the softening surface. playfully crawling themselves across the wet dead weeds toward the buttoned pockets of his dampened cargo shorts, hoping to find. madness, or hunger, had taken hold of my mind and my limbs. it had convinced me he was hiding something there and if i could reach beyond the rock, upon which we sat, i’d find the remnants of a melted Kind Bar, a BOBO’s, an anything. it had convinced me i would be satiated by whatever it was. that it would be enough. and it had almost convinced him he could be useful. that he could be enough. 

“i don’t have anything in there.”

“i figured as much.”

“but you know, we don’t have to keep doing this, right? it's been months. no one is coming.”

“right.”

scared, i watched as he frantically cracked open the window. unplugged the fridge. let the ground thaw. and began to dig at the cavity beside himself. as he ravaged. as he colored his face with loosened dirt and rubbed the residue from his hands onto my own. using a paper bowl as a spoon, he sacrificially stuffed himself with the decay until he landed at the preserved fruit. his slender fingers pried at the berry’s core, letting its red juices taint his skin and dye the once sovereign terrain. 

erratic, he began to lick the sugar from the defiled reddened earth. and still hungry, he battered the unearthed fruit open with his fists. squeezing its halved life into his now empty sediment bowl. before he drank from it, he slid the makeshift chalice over to me with a barbaric grunt. a sound i hadn’t heard before, but had remembered. and despite all logic, the sweet smell still filled my mouth with saliva and turned me into an animal. 

suddenly the flies we had fended off returned, circling the darkening paper bowl just waiting for confirmation of my learned composure. 

briefly, i hesitated and gazed into him. hoping to find him return to his eyes. but he had not. that boy had long since left this place before i even had the chance to. before my plan to abandon him here, still wanting, could even be actualized. inside him, there was no more here. only a relentless void. he was now a man, a shell assured only by what he intuitively knew what was owed to him on lawless lands. 

despite this, i was overtaken by his contagious lower faculty. i daringly let myself place the edge of paper porcelain to my lips and i drank. and i had no inclination to stop. it was only the feeling of the natural summer heat landing back onto my palms when he snatched the bowl from my hands that alerted me to my selfishness. 

“wait, give it back,” i demanded. 

“its my turn,” he spat in his gasp for air between gulps.

“fine.”

it was then i realized it was me who had broken the treaty. who had let him forget the importance of order. who had begun to press her fingers below the surface. who had reached toward and under him. 

fuck it. 

waiting for my turn, i ignored my hand as it trembled and picked up the mushy fruit from the indifferent soil, from where we had left it to rot as we entertained ourselves with its most minute excrements. against my skin, i felt its innards covered by the grainy sludge we birthed. slick, its decrepit bulbous body called me to level it, to forget its fable. 

he watched me through his eyelashes as i took a shameless bite out of its remains, lowering the bowl to reveal a grin tattooed across the bottom of his face. i gnawed through its crisp innards with my mouth wide open. let chunks of it slide down my chin and underneath the worn fabric of my shirt. gathered whatever was left into my hands and pounded the sugary corpse into putty. rubbed it into my face and hair. and finally kicked the shitty bowl out of his hands. 

and he laughed. finding that as he lifted his feet to stomp in amusement they had become stuck in his focus, begging him to run with me. he then stood tall and grabbed whatever was left of the fruit from my loosened grip. eating it. joining me in complete will. 

he finished its last unburied breath and began to clap, stomp, skip—spinning in wild abandon. he dragged me toward him by my forearm. the raw heels of my feet could no longer stand firm in place, and they allowed him to slide me across the ground, splattering the melted permafrost onto my linen pants and beyond the waistband of his cargo shorts. there, finally in his grasp, he picked me up from my surrendered legs and cupped me in his arms. placed me back down again. and began to wave my hands, within his, to the rhythm of the returned cicada song. he used his sticky hands to plant my own around his neck, and we began to sway. at this point, i believe, to the rhythm of absolutely nothing at all. 

and we just stayed like this, for what felt like hours, frequently remembering to shuffle our feet so as to not imprison ourselves where we once did. until the exposed dawn began to creep up on our stained cheeks, mixing our sweat with dirt and sugar. 

at noon, tired and satiated, we fell together. we laid together. allowed the mud to encompass us like a blanket. and stared at the trees beyond. laughing between yawns at our unlearned terror. we, more earnestly, talked of hidden dreams. of future plans to create sandcastles out of the mud, tomorrow. or tonight. of repurposed uses for the mini fridge. of harvest and recipes. of music and atheism. of rebellion and escape. of joint barista-careers in coastal portugal towns. 

“you know, i had actually already booked a flight out of here for tomorrow,” i confessed. 

but his response was only silence. then, a quiet snore. i could only fully hear it when i turned to face him once more. 

i gazed upon him and found him ruined. his breath labored. his once beautiful curls were matted with wads of dirt, and fruit, and greed. his cheeks spotted with this horrid childish warpaint. his clothes even more stained and even more smelly. his starving arm now draped across my chest– heavy. 

i used my own spit to wipe that madness off his pretty face, for good. gently placed him back where he came from. closed the window once more, saving him from the lazy summer breeze, remembering the comfort of modern-day air conditioning and stable floorboards. 

and before he awoke with his belly still full, spirit poisoned by overconsumption and limitless possibilities, i wrote a note:

“Good Morning, My Dearest Friend 

I had to step out early and didn't want to wake you. It was all lovely. I hope you’ll keep the contents of our conversation before bed between us. Thank you. I will catch my train out of here at 5pm. See you on the flip side.

Love, always xx.”