USA. A living room. There was a sword on my friend Brad’s wall.

It was not my sword. It was a catalog sword. Black stand. Gold letters I would not read aloud.

“Check it out,” Brad said, and he drew it.

In my country you do not draw without a reason. The room changes. The air takes a side. A drawn blade is a sentence that has already started.

I stepped back. My hand found the empty place where a hilt was not.

Brad froze. “Whoa. Dude. It’s not even sharp.”

He turned the edge toward the lamp. The metal was honest about its dullness. That did not return the air to what it had been.

“I am sorry,” I said, though he was the one who had drawn. “The body does not ask the blade if it is real.”

Brad slid it home very carefully, the way a man puts a sleeping child down. “My bad. I thought it was just cool.”

It is cool. That is the danger.

We sat. The sword returned to being furniture. The room forgave us at different speeds.

So tell me, America.

When you hang a sword where a painting could go, and you pull it out to show a guest — what are you showing?

The steel, or the fact that you can put it back?

And if it is not sharp, why did both of us become quieter anyway?

Put it back.