Regrets Within A Broken Sword

A man with a broken sword dragged
his feet into a small town with
buildings made only of dark lumber.
There were no churches or statues,
or shrines to anything just a small
library looked over by the elderly that
sat in various rocking chairs with dozens
of cats.
He had been to this town one other time
when he was young and his blade was
at full strength having killed everyone
that ever stood against it.
There was a woman in the center of
the main square sitting beneath a walnut tree.
Her face was wrinkled like the pages of a
forgotten book, but he knew her like he
knew his deepest dreams.
He approached her and fell to his knees
ready to make his confession.
The last time he was there he killed her
daughter when she got between him
and another warrior he planned to fight.
He spilled this regret all over her,
but she didn’t react in the slightest.
She put a hand on his shoulder, and
whispered to him that he must have
her confused with someone else.
Her daughter lived in the city
using metal and ink to record time
for future generations.
No one ever cut her down.
His eyes flipped over in his head
as if trying to visually search his mind
for the lost memories of that day,
but in doing so she seemed to have
broken their hold.
He placed his shattered blade at
the woman’s feet then returned to
the road.
Spending all his time perfecting the paranoia of
physical strength and ignoring
the cracks spreading through
the walls of his thoughts,
created false memories like
dark shades sinking their
fingernails into his neck.