Getting it in the Head. Mike McCormack

I lied.

      ‘Good, because every lover needs a knife. I knew of a man once who woke up beside his beloved and saw for the first time how ugly she was, the scales had finally dropped from his eyes. And even though she was sleeping on his arm he was so panic-stricken he started to chew his own arm off, gnawing and tearing at it like a snared animal. And it took him so long that eventually his beloved awoke and looked at him. He got such a fright that he went into shock and couldn’t move. She couldn’t move him either and he died there in the bed within fifteen minutes. Now if he had one of these,’ she held up a short, double blade, smooth and serrated, ‘he could have had that arm off in two minutes and made good his escape. You wouldn’t want to end up in a situation like that, now would you?’

      ‘That’s a ridiculous story. Besides, it could never happen, my sweetheart is very beautiful.’

      ‘All beauty fades but with proper care and attention a good knife will last forever.’

      ‘I heard a story once of a child philosopher who couldn’t get his penknife sharp enough and he spent all his time honing it until one day the blade disappeared altogether.’

      I will never know why I made up that story.

      ‘That’s the story of a fanatic,’ she said coldly. ‘The story of a man looking for irreducible truths. It wasn’t the knife which failed him but his imagination. The knife was probably perfectly good within its set application. What he should have done was get another knife. There is no danger of that happening with these knives. Have you ever been to prison?’

      ‘No, I live a virtuous and God-fearing existence.’

      ‘And is your life so blameless that you are utterly without fear of reckoning?’

      ‘The truth is that I have no life. I have no qualifications or work. I have no future and I’m not old enough to have a past. Occasions for sin are severely limited.’

      ‘Nevertheless, the world is full of treacheries. One day you might find yourself incarcerated, walled up for a crime you didn’t commit, mass concrete and iron bars between you and the blue sky. You might have exhausted all words and petitions and found no succour in prayer. Then these are the knives for you, they are absolute knives. This one can cut through any substance known to man, it has never been known to fail.’

      ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I retorted.

      ‘Knives are sacred,’ she replied, ‘I would not defile them with lies.’

      ‘You’re serious about all this?’ I said incredulously.

      ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Because these are serious knives.’

      By now any notion of sexual conquest had fled my mind completely. Her unspeakable beauty dominated the room like a caryatid from some distant, ruined temple and her smile filled me with dread. I could almost hear her mind whirring through a set of instructions, sizing up the options before her face committed itself. It did not help either that my table was now laid out and glittering as if for some terrible, total surgery. I wanted my room emptied now, bare and empty as I had always loved it.

      ‘I know everything there is to know about knives,’ she continued. ‘Anything I don’t know about knives is a lie. Look at this one.’ She took up a short, curved piece and juggled it neatly from hand to hand. ‘This is a survivalists’ knife, special army issue to the SAS, the US Navy Seals and other elite anti-terrorist units. It’s a tungsten alloy laid over with Teflon. It’s hafted by a brass tang to an ebony handle. It’s the sharpest knife in creation, strictly under-the-counter material and rarer than most gems.’

      Suddenly she hopped forward on one foot and her arm swung down like a scythe. The knife split the air and buried itself in the door at the other end of the room. The walls resonated with the terrific impact. She withdrew the blade cleanly and handed it to me.

      ‘Now bid for it,’ she commanded.

      ‘I’ve got no money, I’m on the dole. I can’t afford to go throwing away money I don’t have on things I don’t need.’

      ‘Who said anything about money?’

      ‘You’re a saleswoman,’ I said. ‘Money is what you deal in.’

      ‘You’re being presumptuous again, you’ve been that way from the moment you opened the door. I prefer to think of myself as a kind of beneficent society, like the International Gideon Society for instance. I leave people their knives and I walk away. I’ve left knives in hotel rooms and houses all over the world. Sometimes, however, I have to go door to door and get some remuneration, I have to keep body and soul together also.’

      ‘But I have nothing to give. Look around you, I’ve only these four walls and these four limbs. I have nothing to give.’

      ‘That is not true. When I opened the door you wanted to possess me, you wanted to get down on your knees and worship. We could settle for that. One knife against one loveless act of sexual possession. A fair exchange is no robbery and since I want you it would be an honourable transaction.’

      I almost squealed in horror. ‘I can’t,’ I said, a dense wave of nausea swelling through my body. ‘It’s crazy. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Why can’t you just leave me the knife and go?’ I could feel myself being reduced to a caricature of despair. I was on the verge of wringing my hands.

      ‘I’m not a charity,’ she said coldly. ‘I want you and you need this knife, I really don’t see any problem.’

      ‘I told you before I don’t need the knife. Jesus, do I have to go on and on repeating myself?’ Tears were beginning to well behind my eyelids.

      ‘You’ve just told me that you own nothing. Ten minutes of sexual humility and you will own the finest knife in creation. What is there to be afraid of?’

      I was suddenly sobbing, my whole body jerking like a string puppet, tears coursing down my face. Some nacreous light seemed to have spilled in the room and the walls had taken on a tremendous slant. She was now standing before me, sphinx-like and implacable.

      ‘Are you being wilfully ignorant or do I have to spell it out for you? That knife-throwing trick is the least of my talents. I do not think you want to see my full repertoire.’

      I felt my legs collapse beneath me and I was suddenly on the floor, watching my tears spill onto the carpet. When I looked up she was hauling my face up by the hair, standing over me with her legs apart and holding her skirt up with her free hand. She was smiling down on me now without humour, flashing those perfect, too-even teeth.

      ‘That’s it, boy, on your knees. Be witnessed in the true faith of The Knife.’ She pulled my face in closer. ‘This is going to stay with you for the rest of your life. Like a good sharp knife in fact.’

      THE STAINED GLASS VIOLATIONS

       Meats for the belly and the belly for meats;

      but God shall destroy both it and them.

       – I Corinthians 6:13

      Oh, my mother, not again. Tell me it is not my time come round again. Tell me that I can stay here within you, cowering down, letting the whole thing pass over my head. Tell me you will protect and instruct me, bring me news about the world, its trials and convulsions. Tell me you will keep it at a distance from me, something abstract and objectified, never allowing it to touch me. That would make me happy. This time, all seeing, would be the perfect spectator, casting a cold eye from the margins, suffering none of its humiliations and pains. Yes, that is the way I want it this time.

      Oh, Mother, tell me it is a mistake, a momentary flaw in the structure of things. Tell me that if I close my eyes and hold my breath time will pass me over it and I will be able to consign it to those black pits of memory where we keep those dark and unspeakable things. And tell me also, Mother, that for fear of waking it we would never speak of it again.

      Oh,