Eighty Years After — Munro
682 Words
I stopped counting years when my hands stopped changing.
It's easier to measure time by graves.
They buried the last of my original brothers last winter.
Cold ground. Cheap whiskey. Leather vests folded like apologies.
I stood at the edge of the plot and felt nothing new.
Grief doesn't sharpen anymore. It just... layers. Like scars over scars, each one duller, heavier. The demon part of me prefers it that way. Sorrow makes people obedient. Memory makes them predictable.
I watched their grandchildren cry.
Watched wives who once rode behind them lean on canes.
Watched time finish what bullets never did.
And when it was over, when the dirt was tamped down and the living fled back to warm cars and warmer lies, I mounted my bike and went looking for replacements.
That's the job.
That's always been the job.
They think I recruit.
That's the word they use now.
Cleaner. Civilian-friendly.
Truth is, I collect.
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You can see it in them if you know how to look. The men — and women — standing outside dive bars at closing time. The ones who don't flinch at violence but aren't stupid enough to chase it.
The ones who've already lost something they can't get back.
Tonight, it's a kid named Marcus. Early twenties. Too much anger. Not enough fear. Military discharge in his pocket like a second heartbeat. He watches me approach and straightens, like part of him already knows what I am.
The demon stirs.
Potential, it murmurs.
Uncut.
I ignore it.
"I'm not here to save you," I tell Marcus before he can speak. "And I'm not here to threaten you."
He swallows anyway.
Good. Fear is honest.
"I ride with a club," I continue. "We don't promise long lives. We promise meaningful ones."
That always gets them.
Meaning is a blade they walk into willingly.
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The club isn't what it was. It couldn't be.
The world changed. Cameras everywhere. Laws with teeth.
Demons had to learn subtlety or starve.
So we adapted. Fewer public rituals. More private Cuts. Sin refined, distilled.
But the rules didn't change.
They never do.
Consent still matters. Pain still matters. Choice still matters.
And I still enforce it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes, late — when the clubhouse is quiet and the walls hum with old contracts — I let myself remember.
I remember Jack laughing with blood in his mouth, daring me to cut deeper.
I remember Luis teaching his daughter how to ride, pretending not to see the tremor in his hands.
I remember Mary — God, Mary — who carved Devotion into her own skin because she refused to let a man do it for her.
They aged. They weakened. They died.
I didn't.
The demon calls that balance.
I call it theft.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marcus signs on three weeks later.
He kneels for his Cut and cries when the blade bites. Not from pain — from relief. From being seen.
The demon feeds.
I watch, detached, precise, eternal.
When it's done, I clap a hand on his shoulder and say the words I've said a hundred times before:
"You chose this."
And he nods, fervent, grateful.
He has no idea how heavy those words will become.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later, alone in my room, I peel off my gloves and study my hands.
No wrinkles. No tremor. No end.
Eighty years ago, I stepped forward because someone had to be the knife.
Now the knife is all that's left.
Sometimes — only sometimes — I wonder what would happen if someone refused the Cut and stayed anyway. If choice stopped being transactional. If devotion stopped feeding the demon and started starving it.
The thought is dangerous.
I sense the demon go very still when I think it.
Do not, it warns.
I smile without humor.
I've learned, over eight decades, that the only thing demons truly fear —
is a choice they didn't anticipate.
And somewhere out there, I suspect, is a witness who will finally ask me whether I still choose this cage... or if I'm just afraid of what freedom would cost.
- Writer
