Sharp Things

“Either I’m an Idiot or I’m a Genius.” The two extremes muddled in my head
like ants until I dropped my cutting knife into the floorboards, with an echoing thump. It stood straight up, flimsy and threatening.

I stood still and stared at it for a moment, thinking, then looked back at the raw
meat I was cutting on the marble counter. I swayed with the bending blade, Zen-like. A commode flushed down the hallway; a rushed patter of feet creaked the wooden floor.

I reached down to rip the knife from the boards in one giant, manly sweep – it
was stuck. I pulled again, like Arthur but without the magic old man – wouldn’t budge. I decided this was not the answer. I took a deep, calming breath, closing my eyes; I gradually opened them, revealing the old foe that had mocked me all these years. I took one large step back and roundhouse kicked the blade as hard I could – freed! The knife clanged and spun across the spotless kitchen floor, stopping next to a Play Mobile thing. I held my prize high above my head, grinning at my audience. A sunbeam from the window hit the metal.

“I hope you’re happy,” she said with disgust, staggering comically into the kitchen, dropping two oversized suitcases loudly on the hollow floor. “I’m cutting meat,” I said, looking down, muffling my voice. “Don’t play your games. I’m done. This,” she said, gesturing loudly at the walls around her, “is not real. And you…You!” she yelled with her usual high-pitched scream, pointing threateningly at my face like a cartoon, “are an Idiot!” The mascara running down her cheeks made her look like a charcoal sketch that had been half erased.

The screen door yawned shut, a car started and spun off down the drive, onto the
two-lane, up the interstate ramp onto 81 North, and off the ramp in D.C., into her parent’s boring two-bedroom apartment. “An Idiot?” The cruel words stuck in my head like a knife, stuck between the floorboards. “It cannot be.”

I slammed the knife with my hulking, masculine arm, splitting the raw meat into halves. I felt powerful and disgusting at the same time. Blood dripped out
of the fissure, pooling onto the floor around my feet like a melted cherry popsicle.

Feeling light headed, I looked around me where her dramatic arms had pointed.
The sun was shinning brilliantly between the satin curtains, illuminating the pieces.
Gross, disfigured limbs hung from hooks on oak paneling. “Pure Genius,” I
concluded. But, I did need to sharpen my knife.