Prompt
# 34 - Easter
Knife
Knife
She
didn't want to keep breaking that promise. But her reach is robotic.
With its serrated edge, on both sides, its rounded tip, the gentle
curve of its shaft. The grapefruit knife will do nicely. The sleek
efficiency of it . Specialized. Customized. One purpose and one
purpose only.
She
weighs its heft in her left hand. The hand closest to the heart.
Cross your heart. Hope to die. She points the blade at the left eye.
Inserts the tip under the yellow button eyeball. Twists her wrist
imperceptibly. The eye pops up and out neatly.
She shifts the knife to her other hand. Measures its heft anew. Aims at the remaining lemon dot eye, and twists this wrist in turn. The second pop is just as satisfying. The eye's trajectory high and arced. Like an inept player's tiddley wink. Wink. Not wink. Eye. Not eye. Not I. Not I.
She shifts the knife to her other hand. Measures its heft anew. Aims at the remaining lemon dot eye, and twists this wrist in turn. The second pop is just as satisfying. The eye's trajectory high and arced. Like an inept player's tiddley wink. Wink. Not wink. Eye. Not eye. Not I. Not I.
She
didn't want to keep breaking that promise. But there is still the
sunflower pasty blooming cyclopic from the navel. This eye is
monstrous Not the place an eye should be. The tip slides under more
easily. Amputate. Corrective surgery. Pluck it out.
But this pop is unsatisfactory. Weighed down. The flight line low and sluggish. The rounded belly is scarred where the flower once grew. Maybe the scar is a sign. Is this where the knife is meant to enter? The stab to pouf into the hollow belly? To let the air out. Or in? It almost seems too easy. Maybe it's a diversion. Maybe the protruding belly is not the place to begin.
She turns the milky carcass over. The back gives no clues. Forelimbs like arms. Attention! She picks up a foot between forefinger and thumbtip and drops the body face-up again. The foot is supposed to be good luck. Good luck is not the goal. She aims instead for the opposite extremity. With her right hand on the handle and her left at the end of the blade, she presses the knife down, rocks it as if it were a cleaver, at the spot between the top of the skull and the base of the ears. If the skull cracks, she vows, she will not look in.
The ears separate from the head easily. Severed appendages scattered on the board. Nothing oozes. No splatters or drips. Small brown scraps edge a bleeding line where the serrated blade sawed the block. She picks up one ear with the tips of her fingers and plops it whole into her mouth. She pushes the second ear past her sticky lips like cabbage into the hopper, carrot into the grinder. They shouldn't have lain like that. It wasn't right. They didn't know I could see. As she tongues the melting ears, she cleaves the head and adds it whole to her mouth. Her spittle runs red brown. The feet are next. The belly is last. It is hollow and breaks at the final cut. She brushes the pieces into her left hand and tosses them in. She lets it melt. Drip. Warm. Ooze. Before she swallows. She didn't want to keep breaking that promise. There is no pleasure left in the conquest.
Her feet are heavy as she shuffles herself to the bathroom. Chocolate is the worst. She always has to wash her fingers afterward. Always wash her fingers. The emptiness is not triumphant. It's sick. Hollow. She didn't want to keep breaking that promise. But they lay in each other's arms. They lay in each other's arms.
But this pop is unsatisfactory. Weighed down. The flight line low and sluggish. The rounded belly is scarred where the flower once grew. Maybe the scar is a sign. Is this where the knife is meant to enter? The stab to pouf into the hollow belly? To let the air out. Or in? It almost seems too easy. Maybe it's a diversion. Maybe the protruding belly is not the place to begin.
She turns the milky carcass over. The back gives no clues. Forelimbs like arms. Attention! She picks up a foot between forefinger and thumbtip and drops the body face-up again. The foot is supposed to be good luck. Good luck is not the goal. She aims instead for the opposite extremity. With her right hand on the handle and her left at the end of the blade, she presses the knife down, rocks it as if it were a cleaver, at the spot between the top of the skull and the base of the ears. If the skull cracks, she vows, she will not look in.
The ears separate from the head easily. Severed appendages scattered on the board. Nothing oozes. No splatters or drips. Small brown scraps edge a bleeding line where the serrated blade sawed the block. She picks up one ear with the tips of her fingers and plops it whole into her mouth. She pushes the second ear past her sticky lips like cabbage into the hopper, carrot into the grinder. They shouldn't have lain like that. It wasn't right. They didn't know I could see. As she tongues the melting ears, she cleaves the head and adds it whole to her mouth. Her spittle runs red brown. The feet are next. The belly is last. It is hollow and breaks at the final cut. She brushes the pieces into her left hand and tosses them in. She lets it melt. Drip. Warm. Ooze. Before she swallows. She didn't want to keep breaking that promise. There is no pleasure left in the conquest.
Her feet are heavy as she shuffles herself to the bathroom. Chocolate is the worst. She always has to wash her fingers afterward. Always wash her fingers. The emptiness is not triumphant. It's sick. Hollow. She didn't want to keep breaking that promise. But they lay in each other's arms. They lay in each other's arms.
©
jmb
