short fiction · 2026-10-30

The Centurion's Ledger

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The centurion counts his campaigns in scars. Each wound a ledger entry: Germania, the Rhine crossing, the night the standard fell and he held the line alone. Thirty-seven winters. He does not remember the boy who left Rome — only the man who returned, and the man who returned after that, and the man who now watches recruits drill in the dust, seeing himself in each wrong grip, each flinch.

Identity is not the sword. It is the hand that has held a hundred swords, each grip wearing a different groove into the palm. The centurion does not ask who he is. He asks: which campaign am I today? The answer changes with the light.