ReadFin Literary Journal (Winter 2018)

Bloodsport
Tim O’Connell
I’m at the meeting point: a narrow cliff-edge. Waves crash
onto rocks that jut from the ocean like jagged teeth. Countless
samurai have died here coveting clan honour. A wrong step
preludes a 300-foot drop. I hear a squawk that seems to echo
my name. A lone opportunistic gull rides an updraft, a lateafternoon
snack its only concern.
Sensing a presence, I turn. Miguel appears across the way, bathed
in the light of the setting sun.
‘Fifteen minutes I’ve waited.’
‘Impatience,’ Miguel says, ‘is the folly of youth.’
I smirk. ‘Is that what this is? A lesson in patience?’
Miguel advances until we stand a sword-length apart at the cliff’s
edge. Death, like the gull, is opportunistic, and could wing its
way from any direction.
Miguel warns that my insolence will cost me. Unperturbed, I
grin, disarming him with false confidence. I’m less experienced,
but Miguel’s victory is anything but assured.
White-knuckled, we draw our swords, our robes rippling in the
wind. Miguel adopts our clan’s traditional stance; I fall into my
variation of it.
Right legs leading, we lock eyes, each daring the other to strike
first.
Miguel takes a quarter-step back. His weight shifts to his back
foot. I follow his cue, my heel digging into the soft earth. My
flesh is goose-pimpled, my muscles taut. Miguel, expressionless,
wholly inhabits this moment.
The distant seabird screeches, her cry puncturing the silence.
I lunge forward.
Miguel guards high; I feint and strike low. We clash violently
until my blade slips down the length of his. He shunts me
off balance and leads me in a quarter-circle, his position a
counterweight to my heavy blow. I hang on, enduring the hideous
scraping of steel.
We separate explosively. My arm is nicked. I hiss and force it from
my mind. Miguel lunges, hoping to capitalise on his modest blow.
He is uncannily quick, but I deflect, taking his wrist and forcing
him to relent. He leaps back.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘There’s still plenty of fight in me.’
Miguel mocks me with laughter.
The reprieve is short-lived. Our swords collide a dozen more
times. We circle continuously. Alternately, we dominate, losing
then wrestling back control, overpowering and pushing back in
increments. But our reserves are low. Miguel knows this. It’s in
his eyes. For all our discipline, we are but flesh constructs.
We separate, pirouetting in perfect synchronicity. I toss my
robe, my legs shifting free. Then I thrust forward in pre-emptive
strike. Miguel is waiting. He always is. He parries then ripostes
my blow. Sparks fly. Our clashing blades deafen.
‘Gyaaaaah!’ My voice scrapes in my throat.
Our swords clash repeatedly. Dusk looms. I grit my teeth, my
eyes fixed on my opponent. I lust for an opening. My strength is
flagging, my mind clouding. Tiny mistakes accumulate. Miguel’s
focus sharpens; his cuts come too close.
I take one last stand. With a two-handed grip, I draw back,
enveloped by primal fury. I drive my blade with such ferocity.
Miguel defends – barely. His face whitens. I strike again,
thrashing and thrashing. He can’t match my intensity. This is the
virtue of youth.
Miguel panics. He evades my blows, but the near misses spur me
on. Relentless parrying exhausts him. Enraged, I draw back and
swing again, but miscalculate and deal a heavy blow to nothing.
Miguel creates distance and I feel, overwhelmingly, that a vital
opportunity is wasted.
We recover our breath over two long seconds. Then, as if of
one mind, we surge forward with declarative war cries. Miguel
catches my blade in his. We lock in, our poised body language
belying our struggle. We each hope to unnerve the other. Muscles
quake. Our composure slips. Sheens of sweat form above our
brows.
Miguel swiftly sidesteps and I stagger off-kilter. My balance
is again misplaced; I strike a knee into my opponent, but the
move is crude and proves my undoing. It happens so fast: I lurch
sideways, my feet flirting with the cliff-edge, and—
I feel it before seeing it. It’s a clean hit. Miguel has saved me from
a 300-foot drop, only to finish me himself. His blade protrudes
from between my shoulders. We remain like this, outside
time; Miguel savouring victory, perhaps contemplating the
complexities of our relationship, while I am caught in the throes
of death.
Miguel is stoic a long while, his form effortlessly arranged for
the execution of his final blow. The light is changing. Dusk is
becoming night and I am where I deserve to be, skewered on my
brother’s blade.
I’m fading fast, my vision waning. But all’s right, this is the
natural order of things. I focus, as if to immortalise the moment,
find beauty in death. But the gull’s incessant screeches return
and now the sound is frenzied. With the last of my strength, I
look to the source, expecting the sky to be blotted with seagulls.
Instead, I see a barmaid from a neighbouring establishment.
Her stride is long, her expression unamused. She proceeds to her
announcement, a cross-armed harbinger.
‘Daniel! Cody! I’ve been calling for ten minutes! Dinner’s on the
table!’
I stand tall, exhaling frustration. The illusion’s ruined: she’s no
barmaid. My brother Cody releases his hair from its authentic
samurai bun and steps down from the wooden stage-cum-cliff
edge.
‘Sorry, Mum.’
His face broadcasts disappointment. I pat between his shoulder
blades, in the spot where his character slew mine, and assure him
that our rehearsals have not been in vain, that our
depiction of cartoon samurais Jack and Miguel are eerie in their
accuracy, and that our scheduled display will be the highlight of
FantasyCon.
Cody, looking serious, Miguel-esque, casts me a sidelong glance.
Flawless.
ReadFin Literary Journal 23