A Pound of Flesh

“A Pound of Flesh”

**In the City of Scales**, where every offense is weighed and every soul tallied like coin, there lived a man named **Gideon Rook** — a creature of cold eyes and colder opinions. He bore judgment like armor, ironclad and unyielding, and in his presence, truth became tribunal. Every misstep was a crime. Every flaw, a sin. Forgiveness? A myth for the weak.

He called it **righteousness**. Others whispered **hubris**.

Gideon had a list — inked in his ledger of wrongs — of every soul who had crossed, offended, or simply displeased him. Clerks who erred in calculation. Lovers who chose laughter over loyalty. Friends who didn't grovel when they should've wept.

He always demanded his **pound of flesh**.

Not metaphorically.

He meant it.

In the city’s square, beneath the spire of **The Mirror Tower**, Gideon stood in his long black coat, arms crossed, as a trembling man knelt before him — a baker who once overcharged him by three coins.

"A mistake," the baker wept. "It was five years ago."

"And yet the weight remains," Gideon replied, flipping open his ledger. "Justice is not undone by time."

From behind the velvet curtain of law, a masked servant emerged. A glint of blade. The baker sobbed harder, but Gideon turned his face away before the slice was made.

He did not watch.

He never watched.

He only listened.

To the **weight of fairness**.

---

But that night, the city shifted.

The tower whispered.

And the mirror waited.

Gideon walked alone through moonlit streets, ledger in hand, muttering to himself, adding names to his list:

* **Thalia**, for forgetting his birthday.

* **Elric**, for disagreeing in council.

* **His father**, for dying too easily.

So many debts. So many scales to balance.

But as he passed the spire of Mirror Tower, something **tugged** him — not a hand, but a pull deeper than gravity. The mirrored surface of the tower **rippling like water**. One step closer and the reflection began to speak.

He looked.

**And saw himself.**

But not him.

The man in the mirror wore **white**, not black. His expression was soft, his eyes mournful.

"You see wounds," the reflection whispered. "I see people."

"You excuse them," Gideon spat. "You let rot go uncut."

"You cut until there's nothing left," the reflection answered. "And call it justice."

Gideon laughed bitterly. "You sound like a priest. Or a coward."

The mirror darkened.

Then twisted.

In it, he saw scenes play out — from the eyes of the condemned.

* **The baker**, starving child in arms, raising prices just once to feed his blood.

* **Thalia**, his former love, paralyzed by grief the day she forgot.

* **Elric**, a man of truth, speaking what needed to be said, not what Gideon wanted to hear.

One by one, he walked in their shoes. Felt the **pain behind their offenses**. Felt their breath, their racing thoughts, their tears, their fear of **him**.

Gideon stumbled back. The ledger dropped from his hand. It burst open, and the names on the list **bled ink** until each line was illegible.

"No," he said. "No, I was right. I *had* to be right."

"But you were only **you**," the reflection said. "And so were they."

The mirrored Gideon stepped forward, hand on the glass. Their palms met.

"Judgment is a mask we wear when we are afraid to feel."

Gideon gasped.

And the mirror **shattered**.

---

He awoke in the street, broken glass around him. A few passersby muttered about "the madman who stared too long."

The next day, Gideon burned his ledger.

He wandered the city silently, a man reborn in quiet, with no scales in hand. He watched others speak, err, cry, love. He still **felt judgment** rise in his throat — but now, he swallowed it like medicine.

Because he had seen the truth:

> **We do not walk the same roads. We only meet at crossroads.**

> **And in those moments, we mirror.**

> **Sometimes cruel. Sometimes kind. Always human.**

will continue this writing with rest of blog....do not publish yet