You wake and stare at the window where the early morning light filters through the blinds and you try not to think of the knife on the nightstand.
You could rise and eat breakfast and brush your teeth and ignore the presence of the knife. You could snooze for another half hour. You could, in fact, dispose of the knife and never use it again.
That is what you should do.
It is, in fact, what you might do.
But it is not what, deep down, at the foundation of your being, you want to do.
And so you lay there, comfortable in your bed, wanting to start the day like a normal person, like you used to start and end each day before you were given the knife, before you could see the knife.
For it is not a blade of metal. It cuts deeper than steel. It kills things that an ordinary knife could not touch. But you have felt its edge. You bear the marks of it.
You sit up. You can leave the room. Yes, leave. It has no hold on you. You are your own person. You can do whatever you want. You are free – free to avoid the pain, free to avoid this daily struggle, free to walk out the door and join the rest of the happy, thoughtless world.
Your hand reaches for the slender hilt. You grasp it. You mutter some words in prayer, almost against your will. Every morning, against your will, or against your better judgment or against common sense, or against….
Against yourself. The blade, shimmering faintly in the morning light, is against yourself. You are your own enemy. Every day, every morning, every hour, this contest of wills – your will against yourself, with the knife between you.
Put it down!
You lay it on the nightstand, upon the Bible that sits there, but you do not release it.
Let it go! You don’t need it. Don’t hurt yourself. You are enough.
Your fingers grasp the hilt more tightly.
What are you doing? This is ridiculous. You’re going to maim yourself one of these days. You will scar yourself beyond recognition. Love yourself. Put the knife down.
You sit, undecided, the words in your head telling you to leave the knife, to destroy it, telling you that you are mutilating yourself, that you are killing yourself.
Don’t you want to live, to really live?
You lift the blade. The words in your head, they mean two things. You are two people. You are what you were and what you are. You are asleep and awake, alive and dead.
You flip the handle and direct the point at your heart. If you could just end it now….
In the end, a decision only takes a moment.. Arguments build until you either say yes or you say no. You can either turn to the left or to the right. You can either thrust the knife into your breast or you throw it down in relief.
You plunge it into your chest.
The blade sinks to the hilt between your ribs, and for a moment you feel nothing except satisfaction and bewilderment at your own action. Then, pain, pain traveling outward from the pumping heart, as if the veins themselves were vines wrapped chokingly, inextricably around your bones and organs and you are tearing at them, prying them out. You are slicing soul from spirit like a child peeling layers of paint from a wall with deep, insistent fingernails. You suffer, and you think it will continue for eternity, and yet you know it is only a moment, then another moment, and another…
It is finished.
You withdraw the blade. There is no blood. There is no visible wound. A great sense of peace and health pervades your being. You set the knife back on the Bible, thanking God for this new day, for all that will happen. Then, with a rush of strength, you stand.
Upon the bed, a part of you remains, the shadow of a corpse. It is fading, the face that is like yours, the limbs that do the things you do not want to do, the flesh that clings to you.
You have left corpses there day after day. It is easier, now, sometimes. The knife waits for you, but it has done its daily work.
It is morning, and you are a new man.