The Threshold

Rot nests beneath the skin of someone you love, feeding quietly where blood should run. They smile; the rot has learned their face. At first, you choose silence. You call it kindness. But you spare your own hand, not their flesh. What you refuse to name keeps spreading. It does not wait. Your fingers close around the scalpel. The rest of you follows later.

The Way

You did not begin with this steady hand. The first time, you cut too deep. Blood welled faster than you meant, and the colour left their face. The word you could never take back hung between you. The second time, too shallow – what you spared stayed beneath the skin and spread, and the wound closed over it like an apology. Cut too deep, and truth learns the taste of punishment. Cut too shallow, and mercy leaves the rot breathing. A hundred cuts taught your wrist the difference between healing and revenge. The blade goes only as deep as the rot, and no deeper. You have learnt to see where the rot ends and the person begins. They look at you. They see only the blade. One day, their finger will find the scar. You lower the blade. Your hand still shakes.

The Shadow

The Considerate rests his hand on the scalpel. The rot spreads in plain sight; the steel weighs in his palm; the blade does not rise. Tomorrow, he whispers. When they're ready. He draws the linen higher while the rot works beneath it. He keeps vigil at a darkening bed, letting nearness stand in for mercy, waiting for consent from someone already beyond speech. The bed is empty. In the quiet that follows, he washes his hands. They are perfectly clean. He washes them again. ❖ The Just sees the same rot and feels vindication. All those years of silent suspicion, finally answered. She takes up the blade. She has been waiting for this. Certain she knows what they need, she cuts. The blade flashes, excising the rot, severing living flesh alongside it. She cuts past the rot, past healthy tissue, past the very reason she lifted the blade. She stands in the sterile silence of her own making. When she is done, there is nothing left to heal. Only the blade remembers what her hand was for. That night she sits beside the bed she saved. No one thanks her. The bandages seep. Somewhere under the linen, living flesh begins the slow work of forgiving the blade.

The Cut