Handle

by Bram E. Gieben

The consistency of the liquid trickling down his back was sticky and thick, and with shock he realized that it was warm too, like the slime trail from a sexually aroused mollusk. It was hard to grope at the object at this angle, twisting his arm back and around in a crooked ‘V’ shape, fingers scrabbling for purchase on the congealed liquid and slipping this way and that – but finally he managed to curl his recalcitrant digits around the shaft of the thing, and felt its sharp edge; its cold, hard surface. There was the obvious explanation, of course, but his mind resisted that particular line of thought - surely if the obvious were true, he would feel - ah, there it was – sliding through him, delayed after the fact like thunder preceding lightning, an inversion; pain. And lightning-like it was, electrifying every nerve ending and whitening the edges of his vision to unbearable intensity, penetrating his lung from behind with a rush of cold fire, making him cry out with infantile fury at the suddenness, the inevitability of it all. The delay in realization could be explained – a drug tipped point that poisoned his bloodstream and slowed his wits, before the physical feeling of the wound could manifest and be felt – but who could he blame, who was the deliverer of this fatal message? It doesn’t matter, his last thought whispered to itself in the dying light of his mind: nobody carves their name on the handle of a blade.

6S

Bram E. Gieben's website is called Weaponizer.