Knife
By David Castlewitz
Why is this knife in my hand? Why the blood at my bare feet? I feel no pain. I’m not cut. But blood streaks across the black-speckled gray linoleum tiles, across the wood divider into the next room. And with the knife still in my hand, my head aching and I don’t know why, I follow the red lines that drip sideways, follow them into the next room, where I find blood sprinkled across that white carpet Jen insisted on buying.
Sprinkled, not splashed. Tiny dots, not elongated blobs. But blood nonetheless. Testimony to the fact that I killed the monster – my wife’s pet run amok -- which now lay dead by the claw-foot of the sofa, that upholstered eyesore Jen brought home years before. She knew I didn’t like it. Her mother approved, however, and that was enough for Jen.
I stare at the dead animal. Its head lay under the sofa, its stretched legs marring the white carpet. I bypass the carcass and walk to the base of the curved staircase. I put a foot on the first step and call, “Jen? You up there?”
She doesn’t answer, but I hear a noise. Not the screeching and scraping monster noise of a few minutes ago, but rather the noise someone makes when breathing heavy, ready to run and not yet running, frightened and shaking, and hesitant.
Which she is, my Jen. A trembling naked woman, legs twisted one atop the other, her thin arms crushing her small breasts to her chest. She hugs herself, the bed between her and me, her back to the uneven plastered wall with its cracks and dents and nicks, evidence of our arguments, of how her body smacked the paint and left its marks.
“I killed it,” I tell her. “The monster.”
Jen’s long face ceases being red from crying. It is white. Stark white, not merely pale; and she screams in silence, mouth agape, one hand across her blood streaked belly, her hand covering her breast, and her other hand gripping the wooden handle of a large kitchen knife.
“I killed the monster,” I tell her.
Eyes wide, she challenges me with: “Then why is this knife in my hand?”
- - -
By David Castlewitz
Why is this knife in my hand? Why the blood at my bare feet? I feel no pain. I’m not cut. But blood streaks across the black-speckled gray linoleum tiles, across the wood divider into the next room. And with the knife still in my hand, my head aching and I don’t know why, I follow the red lines that drip sideways, follow them into the next room, where I find blood sprinkled across that white carpet Jen insisted on buying.
Sprinkled, not splashed. Tiny dots, not elongated blobs. But blood nonetheless. Testimony to the fact that I killed the monster – my wife’s pet run amok -- which now lay dead by the claw-foot of the sofa, that upholstered eyesore Jen brought home years before. She knew I didn’t like it. Her mother approved, however, and that was enough for Jen.
I stare at the dead animal. Its head lay under the sofa, its stretched legs marring the white carpet. I bypass the carcass and walk to the base of the curved staircase. I put a foot on the first step and call, “Jen? You up there?”
She doesn’t answer, but I hear a noise. Not the screeching and scraping monster noise of a few minutes ago, but rather the noise someone makes when breathing heavy, ready to run and not yet running, frightened and shaking, and hesitant.
Which she is, my Jen. A trembling naked woman, legs twisted one atop the other, her thin arms crushing her small breasts to her chest. She hugs herself, the bed between her and me, her back to the uneven plastered wall with its cracks and dents and nicks, evidence of our arguments, of how her body smacked the paint and left its marks.
“I killed it,” I tell her. “The monster.”
Jen’s long face ceases being red from crying. It is white. Stark white, not merely pale; and she screams in silence, mouth agape, one hand across her blood streaked belly, her hand covering her breast, and her other hand gripping the wooden handle of a large kitchen knife.
“I killed the monster,” I tell her.
Eyes wide, she challenges me with: “Then why is this knife in my hand?”
- - -
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