"Do you know what Blood Brothers are?" I slowly shook my head. "It means we do everything together. What's mine is yours. What's yours is mine. One for all and all for one. Right?"

He pulled out a rusty pocket knife and snapped open the smaller blade. Testing the edge with his thumb, he frowned, and sharpened it on the exposed face of the curbstone.

Steady, holding the knife steady, he deliberately sawed into his left wrist until red drops beaded on his pale, dirt-streaked skin. "Now you." I involuntarily jerked back as he grabbed my arm. I did not want to look, but his snort of derision made me tense up and I forced myself. A shudder. Gasp. But it was all over and my blood was flowing. He slowly completed the ritual by crossing his bleeding wrist over mine and chanting the ancient formulas.

"Now my life is tied to yours and yours to mine. I will die for you. Swear you will die for me."

"I swear."

Nothing changed. I was still at his side as he conquered the roofs of the neighborhood. He would always leave behind a small mound of his excrement as a mark of his passage. That was something I could not quite bring myself to do but that I admired nevertheless. We battled the other warriors on our block with wooden swords, and his fearlessness in combination with my technical skill always vanquished the foe. Armed to the teeth with rubber band shooters, we raided the tea parties of our little sisters and showed them who ran the world. Now we were Blood Brothers and our relationship was formalized.

One day he vanished. His mother had decided to spirit him away from her estranged husband. Gone without a trace.

Nothing was the same. Climbing roofs lost its thrill, its mystical sense of penetrating the unknown. Sword fighting became something the dumb little kids down the block did. I even stooped so low as to play "daddy" at the little neighbor girl's stupid tea party. It didn't matter. Life was empty.

Two years passed into oblivion. I had graduated to the olympian heights of the fourth grade. The first day of class we pupils shyly confronted one another, fellow prisoners in the institution that was to socialize and mechanize us.

Wait. One face seemed a bit familiar. It was HIM! We embraced like long-lost comrades. Which we were.

For several days we were inseparable. But somehow it was not quite the same. Time wreaks havoc on even the strongest of bonds.

He and I had grown apart. We saw each other less often. Soon each of us had our own circle of friends. We no longer had roof climbing and sword fighting to unite us in common struggle. Our paths had divided.

A year later I had forgotten him. Had he likewise forgotten me? Likely. That is the way of the world.

Decades have passed and still I wonder. If fate brings us together once more, will a telltale glint in his eye betray that we once had something in common? That our lives had crossed? That his blood had flowed in my veins and mine in his? And if we should meet on opposite sides of the battlefield, would I hesitate to stick a knife in his gut, or he in mine? That is the way of the world. But I would feel a sense of remorse, the pain of immeasurable loss. Blood does mean something. It has to.