they shine among gods. by Kym Cunningham
“they shine among gods.” is one of three editors’ choice selections for the CRAFT 2024 Flash Prose Prize, guest judged by Meg Pokrass. Our editors chose these pieces as exemplars of the way imaginative ideas and powerful prose can build a sense of otherworldly wonder in flash.
In “they shine among gods.” author Kym Cunningham creates a myth set in another world—or our world, or all worlds—a myth that transcends time. The characters are nameless. Do they inhabit a kingdom, a realm, another planet? The third-person narrator, aware of the familiar stories we tell ourselves, provides the details. Cunningham utilizes unique language and poetics. The syntax creates nuance. It doesn’t matter what happens. We know “it is never not happening.” As Kym Cunningham states in their note, “We can write something else, something that imagines other futures, other ways of being.” Pay attention to the weaving of the threads, how the language surpasses the form. —CRAFT
This is a story that has already happened. It is also happening right now. It is never not happening.
In a land that touches our own, there lived four sisters. Like all, they were both and not special for what they offered each other—a power in residing collective. For together, they wove beautiful blankets, art that lent breath to replace what had been stolen.
Each held their role in the making. The eldest dreamed the possible, the second spoke the dreaming, the third conjured the telling, and the youngest incited its material to life. It was this final aliveness, structured by the antecedents’ subtleties, that made the blanket what it was.
That is, the more a blanket was used, the more beautiful it became. Patterns emerged in the fraying, time wearing threads into infinite lattice. Like skin, each was prized, passed down generations, as much the fabric of family as those it would outlast. And these blankets breathed freely, out in the open—kin not meant to live enclosed by wood or glass.
For this labor, the sisters refused payment. Bad luck, after all, to put a price on intimacy. And besides, anything worthwhile should be freely given, though all bodies must eat. The people trusted mutual aid: offerings left of fruit and wine, yogurt, bread, and honey. In the care of exchange, the sisters had everything they needed and were happy.
They could have stayed this way. And because this story is always happening, they also were never or are still this way, all things being possible and therefore as well true. So perhaps the most familiar path of what follows goes like this—
There was a man close enough in potential, proximity posing as much threat as relief. Maybe he was part of the people. Maybe he was king. He didn’t matter so much as what he wanted, which is what power always wants: more. And so the simplest version is that he thought the sisters offered this.
Theory would suggest he suffered being without relation, that the anxiety of loneliness made him lash out. As if he could see others’ sovereignty solidify overhead and feared it would crush him. But this story is not the place for such analysis. Actions reverberating past intentions, as it were.
So maybe the sisters went willingly. Unclear, after all, the position of the hallowed in extant hierarchies. Maybe they were coerced, physically or otherwise. Likely it was some combination—manipulation and curiosity often walking into mischief hand in hand.
But whatever the means, it ended with the four sisters in front of the man, heads cocked ever so slightly as he quaked in fury.
Yield the fabric of your being! the maybe-king shouted. Release your magic unto me!
Perhaps he thought, by way of primordial grammar, he might spell the sisters, as if incantation preferred the old ways.
But they just shook their heads, brows knit together. That wasn’t how it worked—not things, singular and plural, to be forced. After all, they couldn’t extract art from heart without leaving him behind.
This was collapse, where understanding failed to bridge. And what you should know about those who command is that they do not like to be reminded that they dwell outside knowledge. That there are some things, deep and sacred, that refuse access.
The might-as-well-king got mad, a terrible power to behold, and his rage leached life from the earth, growing until everything around him was decay. The now-giant reached out his now-giant hand and swiped up the sisters, flinging them to the heavens.
But worry not—this was not their end. Instead, weaver recognized weaver, and they caught in the four corners of great spider’s web. How the web came to be, well, that’s a story for another time.
And in its space of hold, the sisters took one breath, then another. Their hands searched for reference, as in how to constellate each other. They appreciated spider’s support but sought community, as all beings must.
They began to pull. But the more they fought, the tighter the thread wound. Try as they might, the sisters couldn’t free themselves, and they knew spiders rarely release their catch. Frustration slipped, blurred their eyes with worry: they would never see each other again.
But in this struggle, their tears and sweat mingled, fluids traveling the thread. And the sisters saw that even dispersed like directions, they were connected. So they pressed lips to fiber and spoke in dreams—some that had already happened, others not yet. When these intimacies touched their belabored secretions, the words calcified into dark pearls, iridescence shifting along the web.
And twined and tangled around this nacre, the threads grew strong, strong enough to capture what reflected between them. The sisters paused, in awe of the night they wrought. They laughed, teeth flashing starlight.
You can hear them up there where they wait, sharp and ready. Witness their joy if you dare.
KYM CUNNINGHAM (she/they) once graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with a PhD in English. They do a few things in order to pay to live in Southern California, spending whatever constitutes free time traveling the coast with their partner and feral dog-child, Truffle Monster. If so inclined, you can read more of Kym’s work at kym-era.com. If the cost is prohibitive (especially if you identify as a member of a marginalized community, including currently and previously incarcerated writers), contact Kym via their website for complimentary copies. We work to make the future worth inheriting. Stay feral, and find Kym on Instagram @kym.era.
Featured image by Adnanta Raharja, courtesy of Unsplash.
