In light of my last post about putting yourself out there, this is a story I first wrote in 2006. I worked on it again in 2009, using it for a uni assignment, and after I'd got feedback from that I worked on it some more and then submitted it to a competition. To my surprise, I won. (It was the Hal Porter Short Story Comp - you can read details here. Although this year's comp doesn't seem to be open yet.) My point is that sometimes stories take a while to come to fruition, and you should never give up on them.
CUT UP
Kathy George
©
The pocket knife balances on my
palm. It’s solid. Cold and heavy. It feels alien, but the longer I hold it the
more familiar it becomes. I wrap my fingers around its bulk, close my eyes, and
wait for that sense of anticipation and pleasure I might have got from clutching
a new lip gloss or sketch pencils...But there’s nothing. I don’t feel anything
at all.
The pocket
knife is made of dull, silver metal and although I turn it over in my hand,
angling it this way and that, it doesn’t throw my image back at me the way a
shiny dinner table knife does. My image remains clouded and obscure.
A tiny circle
of thin wire hangs from one end, attached to which is a cheap plastic clip and
before I know it I’m getting rid of the clip and the wire. It’s the cheapness
that disgusts me. My father didn’t like cheap things, either. For him it was
all about elegance and good workmanship. Leather and solid wood. He liked having
good tools, too. He was handy around the house. He could fix things.
I use a pair
of pliers to cut the wire. They’re his Stanley pliers. The Mercedes Benz of tools, he used to say and he’d put in an Ooh la la and wriggle his butt.
He was a
funny man.
The pliers, some
of his screwdrivers, his favourite tie and his passport are all in my bottom
drawer. My mother doesn’t know I’ve got his passport. She’s been searching for
it but I’m not going to give it up. For one thing, the man in the photo actually
looks like the dad I remember, although his soft hair is a little slicked down.
Usually it was all over the place. A dandelion in a breeze. For another thing, I
was with him when the photo was taken. I stood behind the photographer, stuck out
my tongue and made my eyes wander all over my face, and my dad’s wearing just
the hint of a goofy smile.
Eight
implements are contained within the pocket knife, but the corkscrew is the one I
extract first. Balancing the knife horizontally on my desk, I see that it could
be a steamship, with the corkscrew its smoking funnel. A steamship harmlessly
going about its seafaring business on an ocean of wood. How deceptive
appearances are. Of course it’s not a steamship. It’s a knife.
For slicing.
And cutting.
The blade is
a disappointment. I’ve anticipated something slender and jagged, something tapering
to a spiked point. But the blade is short and squat. Ugly. Wetting my finger I
run it down one side, and suddenly the blade is a mirror and abruptly it’s shut
closed. I’m not practised at this and almost catch my fingers. I try opening
and shutting it one-handed like a gangster, but my fingers are clumsy.
Everything is
shoved off my desk on to the floor. Pens, pencils, text books, sketchpad, even
my precious copy of Michelangelo. The
desktop is wiped down and then I place the pocket knife in the middle of the
desk. Alone. In turn, I sit cross-legged in the middle of my rumpled bed. The
pocket knife and I sit quietly. We gaze expectantly at each other, waiting like
children who are curious to see what will happen next. It is the last thing I
see before closing my eyes that night, and the first thing I see waking up in
the morning.
*
The pocket knife is still waiting
when I return in the afternoon. It neither smiles pityingly at me nor does it
ask questions. It is simply there.
Dumping my
backpack on the floor, I perch on the bed’s edge. Except for a sliver of light
edging through a gap in the curtains, the room is shrouded in darkness the way
I like it.
Leaning over
I pick up the pocket knife and hold it against my cheek. Tenderly. It is both cold
and soothing. And then in one smooth movement I have flicked it open and am
holding it like a weapon, clumsily twirling it in my hand and watching the
light fall on the blade. Dark and shiny and shiny and dark.
My sleeve is
pushed up my arm.
The blade is
pressed against my skin.
Dragging the
blade down against the skin without cutting into it takes considerable control,
and the skin bulges on either side like I’ve cut into a sponge cake. It leaves
a thin white line like a scar but the line quickly fades.
The second
time I push down a little harder. Carefully. Slowly. And still the blade does
not break the skin. We repeat the process, the blade and I, each time pressing
further in. It takes a lot patience. A great deal of control. And the hand that
is doing the cutting soon aches with tension. But at last we are rewarded, the
skin opens and blood flowers like tiny red poppies. It is a steady,
time-consuming process. Up and down strokes are simple, but when the blade
tries to make a turn the skin resists and recoils.
My mother
knocks on my door, startling me.
“Ellen?” she
says. Her voice is muffled. “Ellen, dinner’s ready.”
“Coming,” I
call out. My voice is surprisingly steady.
After a
minute I put down the knife and stand up. I’m light-headed, but it isn’t from
any pain, it’s more like relief. A kind of peace seems to have settled on me.
I collect the
bloody tissues and flush them down the toilet, and cover my arms by wearing a
jumper. It’s a cool evening.
*
At dinner my mother’s eyes are
bright with hope. “How are things?” she asks. “How are you coping?”
The words are
pushed across the table like an envelope she wants me to open. An envelope with
sharp, white corners.
I look at my
plate. I concentrate on picking up my peas one by one with the prongs of my
fork. The peas are not cooked properly and skitter in all directions.
The woman
sitting opposite me has become a little sparrow, a little sparrow with a cocked
head waiting helplessly for a titbit of food. Any food.

It isn’t that
I don’t have anything to tell her. It isn’t that I don’t understand she is also
in pain.
“OK,” I say.
Finally.
She’s still
looking at me. If I could blindfold her, I would.
We play a
little musical duet in the silence, clinking our cutlery on the fragile china
plates. Swallowing delicately.
The cat silently
slips between our legs. She pads backwards and forwards restlessly, as she
always does, eventually settling a respectful distance on the rug and beginning
to wash her ears. She answers to no-one, shows no emotion.
When I stretch
out for my glass of water the weave of my jumper catches on the cuts on my arm,
and reminds me of my handiwork. Engravings.
“And what did
you do today?” I ask.
Out of
nowhere I have constructed a sentence.
I’m talking
to my mother.
And I have to
look up. I have to look at her when I speak.
*
When I wake up late on Saturday
morning the first thing I notice is not the pocket knife but the sliver of light
that falls across my desk. And I reach out and push my hand into the light,
bathing my skin in a soft and warm glow.
I hold my
hand in the light, my thin fingers slightly apart and trembling, the blue veins
bulging faintly through my skin. I am reminded of a sculpture my father and I once
saw when we were all overseas together. It was a vast and spacious art gallery...Probably
in Italy. A sculpture of a pale outstretched hand. A hand reaching out. He’d turned
to me and with amazement in his voice, he’d said, “Isn’t that a thing of
infinite beauty?” And his eyes had blinked at me like they always did when he
was being very serious.
I stand up to
adjust the curtain. Between my fingers the material has the texture of
sandpaper, but I give it a jerk. I open the curtain just a little more and let just
a little more sunshine into my room.