"Iphigenia" by Clary Ahn

Come fall, she tells me about Halloween — how it used to be a ritual of sacrifice. That we are always doing things to please others, for a chance to capture one of our infinite desires, to abate our pains. This is how they used to demonstrate their love. Their respect. We are lying on the carpeted floor of her bedroom and doing nothing at all, limbs splayed out, each other’s warm breath against our cheeks. Our bodies burning with want. She reminds me not to be shocked, because human sacrifice has always existed, present even in our oldest stories. Take Agamemnon, who after accidentally killing one of Artemis’ sacred stags, sent his own daughter to her death under the guise of marriage and joy. Her name was Iphigenia. The name leaves the precipice of her mouth like a sigh. Think about it this way, she says. Every day is an offering, and I am giving bits of myself to you. I am overcome with a sudden grief. I tell her, In some versions of the myth, Artemis saves Iphigenia. What I do not say is that I want this to last forever. Outside, the moon is rising. In front of me, the lucent curve of her jaw, bright like fire, gleams.

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Clary Ahn is from Chelmsford, Massachusetts and San Diego, California. Her work can be found in Another Chicago Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, and Parentheses Journal, among others. She is a fiction editor at EX/POST and a lead editor at Berkeley Fiction Review.