The Day Without Eros in All the World
By Ellen Huang
The day without eros in all the world, they told us, the world would stop. And yet, we found the hour hands still moved and the minute hands ticked the same incremental pace. The sun meandered across the sky still, a fiery chariot, the clouds still fluffed and rolled away, soft as seafoam. The shadows still rung around the rosies and grabbed poles to swing around in graceful choreography.
The day without eros, they said, the flowers would cease to smell sweet, and full-on houses would collapse apart, because eros delivered the foundation. Kids’ molecules would spread apart until they disintegrated into nonexistence, eggs all around the world would die.
Somewhere, a caterpillar would cough up its shell and crawl back into it, discarding a greater destiny of becoming something more. Somewhere, a chocolate company specializing in valentines would go bankrupt, 90% of the songs on the radio would translate to a screeching pitch we couldn’t hear before, and all beauty would be watched through a terrible blinding filter that made everyone turn to cabbages.
But the day without eros was not like that.
We woke, and it was strange; love seemed to still be there, but in a different font or frequency. It was as if jazz covers were playing in the night before smoothly transitioned over to lofi covers of nostalgic songs, soothing the world into living. We looked to one another and felt the relief of familiarity, and that was enough. We felt so coolly fulfilled. It was the colors indigo and blue glowing that day. The sky’s brightest baby blue at midmorning never felt so new.
We put the kettle on the stove. We cracked the eggs sizzling into the pan. We made pancakes. All the usual sweets throughout the day were easy to forget somehow (though now it’s obvious looking back). Sparks—the usual choreography to caress and kiss and hold and keep— dissipated that day like a dream. No one got lost in each other’s eyes, no one watched the shape of each other’s lips, no one was distracted by swishes of beauty. Every conversation, strangely, we could remember, full attention, fully shared enthusiasm for every subject. And we laughed, fully invested, even teasing one another like close friends in a car, both facing forward towards the sun.
We felt like children that day, somehow, and any memory we had of us married dissolved into the air as if it were all a game. No one cheated, either, on the day without eros, because everyone was too busy looking at kites or puppies or little wonders by a babbling brook, or abstract paintings where the golden hour hit just right, or that glorious last blue sky.
Everyone with so much love inside felt the urge to call their gangs of old—you know the ones. The squad that ditched class and got detention together. The cast of that play was running on production in-jokes and philosophical discussions, over milkshakes at Denny’s at 3am before opening night.
The tight-knit, late-night slumber party of misfit girls who brushed, braided, dyed, and cut their hair, lip-synced to rock music, giggled over gross secrets they thought no one else had, chilled each other over ghost stories, and got no sleep because they were up too late geeking out about amphibians and reptiles, weird wonders of the universe, while doing their nails and helping a curious little brother join in and pick colors for his.
The dog pile of guys who always got together for that Jackbox game with serial killer trivia (that this girl they all knew introduced them to), who started rowdily daring whether they could balance trays on their faces, or seeing who could stack the highest chairs, or go the furthest down an abandoned local tunnel, or make the funniest Edna Mode impressions, or make the best gingerbread houses out of milk cartons that had been piling up like another Jenga game in that teeny recycle bin.
The pranksters. The punk bands. The D&D nerds. The teams. The church youth group that asked tough questions together and got in trouble. The co-ed band of misfits who were always teased they’d end up dating (and yet only two of them ever did, once, and not the two anyone was expecting), ordering large pizzas, playing board games, running with their shopping carts down general store aisles as they gathered up a wild cart of ice cream and ingredients for an experimental smoothie concoction. It would be a disaster, but oh a wonderful memory with in-jokes long to come. Knowing how young they sounded, but without a care in the world. They were young and happy.
And new co-ed, gender-freed bands of misfits. The black sheep queer cousins who had confessed to one another quietly on the floor or couch or bed what their families had said—and found refuge coming out to each other. They now met up again, some of them immediately family, neighbors, homesteads, adopted or adopting. Even the introvert king having the time of his life traveling like a wizard and then hosting everyone in his castle. All of them feasting, all of them blissfully sharing how far they’ve come, how all is found.
Our children did not die, on the day without eros, nor have their molecules spread apart, but rather saw how we modeled friendships and did likewise. For that magical day, they were all playing outside together in Neverland, Heaven, harmony, what have you, and their laughter and ours felt one and the same.
“Why haven’t we talked sooner, all this time?” some of us asked, over games and coffees and shakes and breakfast for dinner.
“Milestones happened,” some of us replied, shuffling the cards, rolling the dice, refilling the drinks. “It just never seemed like there was enough time.”
The day after, starting at different times in different places, the passions returned, the kisses, the mating dances of the funky birds, the creakings on the other side of the wall enough to make your eyes roll out of your head. Sunsets warmed, flower arrangements were curated, and people some time or other felt flowers bloom inside themselves, between each other.
The day after, the world kept turning like normal, as if the day without eros was all a surreal shared dream. But love increased in everything, for what was planted the day before.
Ellen Huang (she/her) is an aroace folklore enthusiast and whimsical gothic dork. She reads for Whale Road Review and is published in 100+ venues including Lumiere Review, celestite poetry, Ram Eye Press, Sword & Kettle Press, Crow & Cross Keys, Lucent Dreaming, Moss Puppy, warning lines, Amethyst Review, Exhume Journal, and The Medusa Project by Mookychick, among others. She is also working on an ace horror collection. Follow @nocturnalxlight on Twitter.