Smudge Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
It was a sacred pact. Signed, sealed and delivered. Sealed with a
kiss. Or sealed in blood. There were lots of sayings. Too many sayings. It was
all too confusing. There were too many. But they meant the same thing. He was
sure of that. He was sure that one of them was right at least. There were pacts
and there were people and there were supposed to be ways of binding them. He
was sure of that much.
Blood was a bond. It was a sacred bond that could not be broken.
That’s what he believed. It was a truth. People could give their word, but a
word wasn’t really a bond. People broke their word all the time. The only way
to make sure was a blood bond. That was irrefutable. A word was just a word,
but blood was blood. Much thicker and stronger. Blood was supposed to be thick.
He was sure of that.
People became bound by blood. Blood brothers. Marriage. Family.
There were many ways to tie blood together and make it stick. Did he have a
blood brother? He couldn’t remember. It was unclear. He was always foggy
anymore. But he was sure of her. He had her. They were bound, weren’t they? He
had her blood as proof.
A spot of blood. A stain of blood. A drop of blood. What was it?
It was a stain on the wall, a stain in his memory. A dot of her. A dot of
blood. He pressed his finger against the wall. That’s what he had done. There
had been blood. He had pressed his hand to the wall. There was a smudge now. It
would have left a mark. A print. His finger print. He had rubbed it out. He
couldn’t leave that. No not that. But he wanted a part of her so he left the
dirty smudge.
He loved her. He wanted her forever. She was his forever. She was
supposed to be anyway. They had promised. They had agreed. They had a bond.
They were connected. It was a promise. A promise is a promise and that’s a
sacred bond. It wasn’t his fault if she didn’t want to live up to her part. It
was a sacred promise. He was just enforcing it. She changed. She broke her
promise. He was just making her keep her promise.
He looked at the wall. It hardly looked like anything anymore.
Just a dirty stain on a dirty wall. It could have been anything. No one else
would have ever known that it had been blood. But he knew. He knew. Someone
else would have cleaned it and erased the evidence. Someone else would have let
her go. But not him. Not him.
It was a sacred vow, a promise, and he had sealed it with a kiss.
He made her live up to her promise. It was just a spot on the wall. It was all
he had left. It was his memory of her. It was nothing. She was gone and she was
only in his head. But she was his. He knew that to be true. He had the blood to
prove it.
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