Syzigial by Brontë Goodspeed-Gross
It is a merciless day. The sun is pummeling the earth with an unrelenting blast of heat. Today, it is so hot that even the mirages have evaporated, leaving nothing but the sullen and burning asphalt. This is the kind of day that I live for. From my position on my white plastic armchair, I can watch the beautiful and burning ball of fire riding its thermals across the sky. The chair is backed right up to the west side of my cracked and peeling house. The white, flaking paint has long ago given up any pretense of covering the siding boards and now merely accentuates their nakedness.
I do this every day, watching the sun wind its way across the sky. It’ s my job, in a way. The days like these are the ones that make it worth it, when the air is scalding and each breath you exhale is like spitting fire. Maybe this is what it feels like to be a dragon, I thought, admiring the deep tan on my skin. Sitting out here with my shirt off all day has left my skin dry and leathery, but I got used to that a long time ago. I have been living in this place long enough to watch the town grow up around me. Fields become parking lots, trees turn to lampposts. The buildings have been growing taller, but none of them have encroached on my view of the sky yet. Looks like that might be changing soon. They’ re digging up the parking lot across the street from me, and from the amount of equipment they’ re bringing in, it looks like this one is gonna be big. Maybe I’ ll have a word with the developer tomorrow.
The next day, I drag my chair to a spot where I can keep an eye on both the sunrise and the parking lot. I am waiting for the proprietor to show up, to begin skulking around his new project. A shiny car pulls up to the dusty lot, and I wait for the driver to get out and begin his habitual walk around the property. I begin walking over, and he looks up at me and gapes. Yeah, a seven foot tall man with burning golden pupils will do that to people. I take a step over the chain with the DO NOT TRESPASS sign and stride up to him. As soon as I cross the barrier, his attitude changes. I can see in his eyes that he thinks he knows how to deal with this.
“ Who the fuck are you?” he asks while he whips out his phone and prepares to dial someone. I cover the remaining distance in one easy lope, and then I grab his hand and squeeze. The phone shatters in his hand as his bones grind together, shards of cracked screen embedding themselves in his skin. He almost manages to choke out a scream, but I seize his throat and lift him off of his feet. Blood drips from his crippled hand as his legs sway, searching for contacting with the ground.
“ They used to call me Apollo,” I say.“ But now I have a question for you. Do you know what a syzygial is?” He shakes his head – or at least he tries to – and I keeping talking.“ It’ s an alignment of the sun, the moon, and the earth. There’ s three options to choose from – a solar eclipse, where the moon orbits in between the sun and the earth. This one has driven civilizations into terror for millennia. Then there’ s the lunar eclipse, where the earth slides in between the sun and the moon. Personally, that’ s my favorite. It’ s a pretty one. But do you wanna know what they call the last option? Where the sun gets in between the moon and the earth?” The proprietor looks into my eyes, and his own roll up into his head in terror. I speak with the finality that they only give to gods.“ They call it a fucking apocalypse. Now take all this shit and go.”
He writhes in my grip, and I drop him on to the dusty ground. Overhead, the sun blazes. It is going to be another hot day.
*
27