"I'm warning you for the last time, there are robbers prowling around tonight. It's in the news all over."

Antanas' friend was staying over to watch a movie. But before that, there was his mother in the garden with them, in the wake of the summer solstice, with all the windows open to the pollen dotting the shrubs. First, she merely seemed to be inspecting the strawberries for their ripeness, those little wild ones with pimply faces frowning underneath the clovers. Then she came marching to the two friends, sitting on their large double-seated swing. It was hanging between two pine trees, once built by her when she had noticed how the sun fell so blankly in between the gap. They needed a construction to oversee the land behind those two stately trees, that heath with violet in all shades.

"Weren't they caught recently?" Antanas asked.

"Whom did you hear that from? Elves?" his mother answered.

"My parents installed an alarm system just for them," was his friend's, Isa's, two cents.

"Well, we don't have one. Inflation broke our wallet. Say, children, wouldn't you come see the play with us tonight instead of staying here? I'm awfully worried."

"We're seventeen, mom. Not kids. Besides, Isa knows judo."

Isa had demonstrated a few moves before. She wasn't convinced. The mother shook her head.

"Well, stay inside, okay? No camping. No parties. I mean it."

"We're just watching a movie, don't worry."

"You'd better be. Your father and I are leaving now. So, behave."

                                      *****

"I bet they're just rumours. Still on for the summer solstice?" asked Antanas when his mother was out of earshot. 

Isa laughed, slowly letting his swing return to a stand-still.

"I don't know man, I've heard stories about those robbers too. Two months ago, they tied up a family in their own basement." 

Then he yelled, because he felt something hit his shoulder. A stick fell to the ground.

"Ow! What the hell?"

"The robbers!" Antanas laughed. "Watch out! Listen, you know we'll be making a fire for the ritual, smoking up the sky. Robbers go to quiet houses, so we'll have to sing and yell. They're like bears, they hate chaos."

Isa had a deep whiff of the June air. He knew the chance was very slim indeed. But as they collected the candles out of the bushes, something else he knew about bears came to mind: bear is a deeply scared word, hiding under the covers of the modern mouth. Wasn't it true that bear meant "brown one" in before-before-before-Germanic, because people back then wanted to avoid the real animal like the plague? The idea unsettled him. Antanas' mother and his own parents had told them to watch out for robbers, but no one knew who the actual robbers were either. Who was prowling around in the night? Some robbers, some switchblades, some shadows, lurking.

                                     *****

They had decided that the sun should drop at its lowest and latest, right as they had swung highest on the swing, with the candles in their hands. So now sunset, and watching.

Isa promoted his hearing to his primary sense, listened for any cracks of the twigs, any shudder in the greenery, any shuffling around the house at all.

"Relax, you're just paranoid," his friend said. "You can't interrupt this sacred tradition with the heebie-jeebies. Did you bring the grasses?"

"Of course I did. I'm no sinner."

Isa threw them in the terra cotta fire pot, and there was the smoke.

"My parents called me crazy when I told them about the summer solstice," he said, with the sky's rust-coloured glass falling overhead. 

"What a movie we're watching, huh. Gotta give my mom some credit for hanging the swing right in the middle of the sunset."

The copper spread over all, and for a while, Isa didn't think of the robbers.

"There it is," Isa announced. The wagon in the sky was at its ripest point. They had to reap it now. Counting down, screaming up harder than they ever had, with the flames resisting death by their sudden movement. Birds shook awake from the trees, and in the pit of Isa's stomach he felt something entirely new, something

lethal and bad and sucker-punching him, harpooning him top to finish.

When his feet touched the ground, the sun was no more. Overhead hung a veil as dark as drenched soil.

"It's bloody freezing," Antanas shivered.

"The lighter."

The candles didn't wake again. And behind them, there wasn't a behind-them. The house had gone, the neighbouring houses too, the electricity cables, the lawn chairs, the heap of recently planted strawberries wasn't even there. In short, only the swing, the heath but not the heat, and the two rich-smelling pine trees had survived the fall of the sun.

"D'you think there is an eclipse we don't know about?" Isa proffered. He felt like he'd faint if he left the swing, but Antonas had climbed on top of the wooden construction now, his legs dangling down.

"Yeah...that must be it. What a coincidence, the one year we try the solstice. I mean, they should have warned us."

Isa lifted his head, up to his friend who was looking at nothing, talking about nothing.

"Dude, they did warn us. The robbers."

"The robbers can't steal the sun! What's the matter with you?" he laughed, but had to steady his hands to keep from tumbling down.

"Great. This is just beautiful."

"We just need to wait a little. Eclipses don't last that long."

"It's not an eclipse."

Isa envisioned the long Summer they had in front of them. He was with his friend now, but he had no idea what would happen after that. He didn't want to get off the swing out of the trees just yet.

"Come down, let's swing."

"What?"

"It's the only thing to do."

Antanas hesitated, but gave his friend a large push before he got on his own seat. They started whistling some song.

Some way along the line, the dark passed.

The next morning, they woke up. Antanas' mom checked in through a crack of the bedroom door.

"No robbers interrupting your movie last night?"

"No mom, they didn't like comedies," Antonas laughed.

"Well, lucky you."

Isa nodded at the ceiling.

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