by Clare Callow

Created on: August 27, 2008   Last Updated: January 30, 2009

The blade goes in and I hear his gasp. Terrifying. Final.

It is as if his soul is escaping in that one, rushed, outward breath. His eyes are fixed on mine, and I can see his pupils dilate, strangely, slowly, as his mouth opens and closes like a stunned fish.

He drops to the ground, his movements sluggish, his limbs gently folding in on one another as their strength gives out. As he goes, the blade slips from him, and I let it dangle in my hand. He looks up at me, his face filled with surprise. I reflect that even here, each man carries the secret belief that he is immortal. I have just taken that fantasy from him.

His hand clutches at the wound, and I wonder whether it is painful, or whether it is just a reflex that makes him attempt to staunch the blood. It does not matter; his hands are clumsy and will never know agility again. His eyes go cloudy, as if his mind has gone to another place, and he seems to lose the last of control over his body. His head lolls like a sleepy child, now dropping, now jerking up again, as if he is trying to stay awake. Which he is trying to do, I suppose.

His eyes meet mine once more, and I think I see understanding - forgiveness? - in them. In sharing his death, I feel I have shared some sacred moment with him, in which there is no blame and no bitterness. Maybe it is just my hope to forgive myself.

I do not know how long I stare into his eyes before I realize that the spark, or whatever it is that is life, has gone out of them. I feel a faint surprise. Perhaps I had expected the moment to be defined in some way, for something to signal that this man in front of me, who once walked, once danced, who sang and loved and suffered, is no more. I think I expected something... anything but this indefinable slipping away. I realize he is gone and I feel bitter loneliness, more intense than any I have felt before.

My eyes drop from his dead gaze, and I see the blood. It is so very red, and already coagulating in the sun. It looks sticky and sweet. It has flowed over his hands where they clutched at his wound, flowed in streams and pooled onto the ground. He lies awkwardly, half-propped on a rock, his legs crumpled under him. One of his boots is caught in the material of his trousers, and his shoulder is pressed forward where he has slumped against the rock. I want to straighten him, and have to stop myself.

He is beyond comfort now.

I hear a clang. The knife has dropped out of my hand.

It does not matter if this is war, or a personal, close-blooded murder; if it is a bar-room knife fight or a meeting on an ancient battlefield. I have just joined the ranks of true humanity, of our unique animal nature fully realized: I have shed my brother's blood.

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