Ally of Carthage

by Rob Edmunds

  He closed his eyes and imagined Melqart, with his colossal strength and nobility, and his implausibly exaggerated musculature. He said a silent prayer, thinking out the rhythmic words he often had incantated in sanctified cloisters. His imagination stimulated and sharpened the image, but, when he opened his eyes again, all traces of his god disappeared.

  He closed them again, this time summoning Sophonisba, his love, from the phosphene darkness. His memory came to his aid, and he remembered their halcyon summer idylls, curled together, looking for the right words and their hearts finding them. He held his lids tight, clinging to a long-lost moment, but when he opened them again she too, like his celestial patron, fled instantaneously.

  “Bless you, sweetheart,” he whispered into the emptiness, within and without.