Winter Solstice (Khun Bam)

Winter Solstice

Shadowless souls

Silver snow

Once upon a

December

**

There is a quiet beauty on the darkest day of the year, the winter solstice.

On this shortest day and longest night, Bam finds out where the graves of his parents can be found.

There weren't actual bodies underneath the dirt and snow; the weathered grey tombstones were only made as a remembrance by people who did not want to be known. Who they were, Bam never found out.

Regardless, Bam insists to visit. Khun joins him without question.

The evening twilight was a benediction even though frost seemed to accumulate on their bones. The weather on the hundredth floor was especially bitter.

The broken gate creaked as they nudged it open. A nameless stone sentinel stands guard for the fallen.

Khun tucked the edge of Bam's scarf tighter around his neck as they stood in a small, neglected garden. Even the snow did not manage to hide the frozen weeds that crumbled beneath their feet.

They treaded softly, as if afraid to startle the dead.

Bam dusts the snow off the crown of the headstone and runs his fingers through its crevices to slide off the ice. His fingers do not waver in the cold. Where stone met snow, two winged cherubs stared back at him.

Khun murmurs and his words escape in puffs of smoke amidst the crisp winter air.

Arlene Grace

Her goodness is unforgotten

by the memory of time

She lies in a dream

She loves deeply

Bam traces each word so that the frost no longer obscures the epitaph.

"I wonder what she was like, Khun."

The snow twinkled back in response; they were not fond of sharing their secrets.

"She must have been good."

For her to have Bam, Khun thinks that she must have been exceedingly virtuous.

The stone on the right belonged to the man Arlene had loved till death and beyond. Bam follows the curved alphabet downwards, then up. V. There is nothing written as his epitaph except:

Here lies a man who loved and was loved.

Khun thinks it is ironic how the dead probably had no control over what was written as a summary of themselves and their lives. Epitaphs were after all, not meant for the dead. They were meant for the living.

Bam crouches there for a long while. Beyond the graves stood a garden swing. The sort that lovers would squeeze on, laughing and holding hands with romance in their eyes and love written on their heart shaped lips.

Bam imagines his faceless parents giggling as the swing moves them to and fro, in a world where he had yet to exist. He can almost hear the tinkling of the miniature bells which adorned the side of the seat.

"What would you want written as your epitaph, Khun?"

Khun gives a snort. "I hope it'll say something like – here lies a traitor who overthrew his father."

Bam still has the countenance to laugh softly and Khun is relieved. He doesn't need a tombstone – a miserable box to keep his body – or an epitaph if he ever died. He would rather have Bam forget him. The dead should not create suffering for the living. He decides not to ask Bam back the same question; he hopes that Bam lives forever.

Khun makes a wreath of ice, a circle with no beginning and no end. He's familiar with this sort of offerings, having attended numerous funerals of his brothers and sisters when young. How many exactly, he had lost count. Ice flowers formed a wheel, petal by petal, fastening themselves together tightly like fingers of two souls in love.

He feels that there's something missing as he stares at the wreath. Ah. He creates a small figurine of Bam underneath the flowers.

"How's that?" Khun can't see Bam's face but he knows there is a smile. "I even gave you wings."

"Make yourself one too, Khun. So that I won't be lonely."

A second figurine manifests next to Bam's. It is now Khun's turn to smile. The hundredth floor was cursed by the floor's guardian to be caged in ice forever. If someone cared to venture past the broken gate and into this silent garden, they would learn that there were two visitors, once upon a December.

Bam stands, two inches taller than Khun now. He's a mast pole in the wind and his coat whips around him like a flag.

"Thank you for coming with me."

Bam has thanked him many times before but this one finds its way to the pockets of Khun's heart.

"Of course." Khun takes two steps forward and falls into place, right next to Bam.

"You're my family, Bam."

There's a certain vulnerability Khun exposes himself to when he says this. He is unable to meet Bam's eyes not because his words were insincere, but because they held too much truth. He could only manage this much courage for now.

Bam shivers. From the wind or his words, he would never know. Bam slips his hands around Khun's waist and embraces him. Two candles in the snow, flickering.

"You're family to me too."

Truths did not need to be said in any louder than a whisper. A remarkable warmth spreads across Khun's chest.

The snow starts to fall now, soft white flakes fluttering slowly from the sky like falling stars. A quilt of white. The swing beyond the graves continues to stand still. It's not the first snow, but Khun is enchanted. A frozen bell tinkles in the wind.

Bam's breath is warm against the crook of his neck. "I hope they're both happy in heaven," Bam mumbles. He presumes heaven is somewhere outside the Tower, beyond the bloodshed, and beyond Jahad.

Khun holds Bam in his arms at the moment of solstice and thinks that heaven, if it even exists, is probably something like this. He presses a kiss on the top of Bam's head, as gentle as one of the snowflakes that falls on his hair.

If Bam realizes it, he says nothing.

They depart from this moment of eternity slowly; a silver storm was approaching. Bam holds on to the fold of Khun's arm as they walk.

Khun swings the gate close with the arm that Bam is not holding. The stone sentinel's farewell is silent and the wind covers the whispers of shadowless ghosts.

Two ice figurines stand strong under a ring of flowers as the last of the winter light fades. It is near the end of the solstice.

A new dawn awaits.

**

Author's notes (a summarised epilogue):

Bam opens the gate tens of years later. It still creaks. "I'm back," he whispers to no one. The figurines are still there. He picks them up and realises that Khun had made it such that they were smiling.

The frozen bell no longer tinkles and Bam now knows that there is no such thing as heaven. A single tear melts the frosty wing of his ice doll. He places it back beneath the ring of flowers next to Khun, where it belonged.

There was two of them then, but there is only one of him now.

A winter embrace dances across his memory, with a single kiss. Those were too far away and too long ago - things he yearned to remember.

He walks back to the gate, alone.