{"id":35933,"date":"2018-07-01T12:31:55","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T18:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=35933"},"modified":"2025-11-11T08:48:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T15:48:58","slug":"aaron-cance-solomon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/aaron-cance-solomon\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Cance: Solomon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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READ LOCAL First<\/strong>\u00a0represents Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of\u00a0celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you an\u00a0excerpt from Aaron Cance\u2019s novel-in-progress,\u00a0The Past Day Will Shine<\/i>.\u00a0Cance, proprietor of Sandy-based indie bookstore The Printed Garden,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>earned a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin before coming to Salt Lake City where completed his M.A. in British and American Literature at the University of Utah. His reviews have appeared in\u00a0<\/span>Fiction Writer\u2019s Review<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>15 Bytes<\/i>, and his poetry has appeared in Southern Minnesota State University\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Bare Root Review<\/i>. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife Katherine and daughter Viola Wren.<\/p>\n

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Solomon<\/h4>\n

P<\/span>rofusion of light slips soundlessly through sky, climbing clouds, illuminating blasts shattering the nebulous black amphitheater of the night, a moment of silence, then the deafening peal of thunder that threatens to split the sky and crumble the earth beneath with its monstrous force.\u00a0 Sheets of icy rain fall miles and, caught in the wind, blast the shifting treetops, the long cobblestone drive that sweeps across the field, and upward, through the stone arch of the gatehouse to the broad, squat manor house.\u00a0 Carriage and horses sweep past, through the rain, over the bridge, through the portal of the gatehouse and up to the main gates.\u00a0 Lone, unfortunate figure emerges from the shadows into the storm to open the wrought iron gates, admitting the carriage to the courtyard.\u00a0 The driver leads the team to his right, circles past the bottom of the stone steps that flank the courtyard, that lead to the grounds on either side of the building, past the two guardians of the nearby forest, the stone lions, reclined, brings the carriage around to a stop in front of the two main doors.<\/h4>\n

\u00a0Two figures emerge from the warmth of the house and descend the glistening front steps.\u00a0 The first to reach the carriage opens the door and extends his hand to assist the large form climbing out; the second has opened a parasol to shelter the master of the house from the storm as he climbs the wet stone steps into the shelter of his home, clutching, with both hands, a well wrapped parcel.\u00a0 Another peal of thunder, or perhaps it\u2019s the two large doors slamming simultaneously into place behind him, the sound a stone would make rolled over the mouth of a tomb, the sound echoing away from him into the house, down the distance of long, lonely, hallways.<\/h4>\n

He looks up to see Evelyn descend a few tentative steps at the top of the front staircase, dressed in black, a wraith, a silhouette.\u00a0 Two hands take his parcel, and an entourage of servants proceed to remove his wet overcoat, to take, from him, his hat and leather gloves and, receiving his parcel once again, he turns and steps out of the brief bustle around him, turns to look wordlessly up the staircase at her, turns and forces himself to climb one step, then a second.\u00a0 Silent ascent, slow like a procession, and he hears the servants scatter behind him, feels their eyes on his back, feels the weight of his own regret, and horror.\u00a0 Another step, and another, and he holds the bundle close to his chest in a damp embrace, as if it were the body of his son.\u00a0 Shaking, still chilled by the rain, wiping a dry hand over his moist face, he takes another step, and another, limbs heavy, feeling the gravitational pull on his bones, the pull of the grave.<\/h4>\n

Finally at the top, and he looks, wordlessly, at his wife, wishing he could reach out to her, wishing he could comfort her, but afraid.\u00a0 He feels their shared sense of guilt, sees it in her glistening eyes.\u00a0 They have done this thing together, he thinks.\u00a0 Blinded by their sense of propriety, by their self-conscious sense of repute, they will share this ugliness as they have shared everything else, and will live on.\u00a0 If he reaches to her now, will she embrace him or push him away, lashing out at his face in the sudden release of weeks of accumulated and silent grief?<\/h4>\n

\u00a0She waits for him to reach out, to set the wrapped parcel on the hall table and hold her, watches the uncertainty in his eyes, and feels something slowly close, with finality, in her chest as he turns away to move silently down the darkened passage into the belly of the house, his form slowly disappearing into the shadows.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

\u00a0It is a relief to be alone in his study, to no longer see the reflection of his helplessness in her face.\u00a0 It is easier, here, to disappear, to let go of his sense of self-possession, until he has nearly ceased to exist.\u00a0 And, as his sense of self slowly slips away until his is just a body in a room full of books, so, too, his pain eases and his guilt begins to dim to a dull throbbing under his arms.\u00a0 He relaxes his grip on the wrapped bundle for the first time, never realizing, until this very moment, how tightly he had clutched it, and sets it on a broad, sturdy table of spread maps.<\/h4>\n

Unfolding the coarse cloth one layer at a time, he finds himself looking at the battered leather volume, thick and filled with William\u2019s handwriting, his son\u2019s handwriting, looking at the maps trapped beneath it, at the leather chair with large gold studs and heavy feet, at the boy asleep, again, in its arms, just a boy, again.\u00a0 So many nights in this place, safe from the storm.\u00a0 The photograph of his father the boy held tightly that night now so long ago, now on the bookshelf, and he remembers the limp weight cradled in his arms, the warmth of the boy\u2019s breath, face in his neck, asleep, passing half empty wine glasses, moving up the broad staircase to the child\u2019s room.\u00a0 I guess you\u2019re free now, aren\u2019t you, little sparrow.\u00a0Fly away, then.<\/h4>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

READ LOCAL First\u00a0represents Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of\u00a0celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you an\u00a0excerpt from Aaron Cance\u2019s novel-in-progress,\u00a0The Past Day Will Shine.\u00a0Cance, proprietor of Sandy-based indie bookstore The Printed Garden,\u00a0earned a B.A. in English Literature from the University of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":35998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[2808],"class_list":["post-35933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first","tag-aaron-cance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/AaronCance-1-768x576.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 13:01:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35933"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98463,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35933\/revisions\/98463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}