Half a Blade, Half a Hero

Like your brother, you too have something precious on you at all times.

When asked where it came from, you’ve said all sorts of things. In a dumpster. Outside someone’s house. Half buried beneath the iron-wrought gates surrounding the cemetery. The attic.

You go treasure hunting with your friends at least once a week, so maybe it’s true.

You certainly can’t remember.

But you finger the pommel, grip the hilt until your hand seizes from the tension; whatever it’s made of, it was dull and grey when you first found it, and you’ve rubbed it to a Vatican gold.

It’s like a metaphor, your sister says. You have to work hard to gain something that truly shines.

She would know. Her eyes are bright silver.

Mother is very proud of her.

But you’re not looking for praise just yet, so you lead your party of scavengers with half-a-sword pointed skyward and scour your town, with its cracked statues and water fountains covered in moss, for trinkets and other remnants of a history the broken-backed wish you would forget ever existed.

You keep the dead singing. A choir for the damned. Your sword, the conductor’s baton.