To Cut

To Cut



Grandpa screamed. He grabbed Roger by the neck and slammed him on to the wall. “Why?” he asked angrily, “What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how much that was worth?” Roger followed his only relative’s glance and saw his bed. It was ripped apart with the cotton flying all over the place. He smiled. “It was fun”, he answered. Unlike other teenagers, Roger never lied. He never felt the need to. Probably that was why he had no friends.



“For heaven’s sake, you are turning seventeen this September. You are not a kid anymore.” Roger raised his brows and looked away. What was the point? Grandpa would never understand. He would never understand the pleasure. “And stay away from knives,” Grandpa shouted, spitting on his face, “They are dangerous.”



Grandpa left the room, grounding him for a month. But Roger didn’t care. He had thoroughly enjoyed it. He looked once again at the bed, examining the bed-sheet with his fingers; a straight line – a perfect one. First, you make your aim. Point the knife in the right direction and mentally draw an image of the cut. Then you press the knife down and enjoy as the object tenderly gives in and deflates. All objects do not deflate – the walls do not, though, the wall papers come out in the process. Only soft objects do – like a bath-sponge.



However, every object has a threshold, and once that is reached, the real fun begins. Objects usually begin to get ripped and this initial cut is hard to make. The walls were the hardest and so was the wooden table. Clothes were nearly impossible unless you stretch them out, speaking of which, even the skin of a dead animal came under this category.



The soft cushion of the bed was the closest to perfect but something was even better. That night, while Grandpa was sleeping, Roger snuck in to the kitchen. He examined the various types of knives. The butter-knife was a joke. The bread knife was well, for bread. It did give him extreme pleasure to slice out breads for him and his grandfather in the mornings, which was why he prepared breakfast everyday. Next was the butcher’s knife. It was good for cutting things that were hard and fibrous, such as vegetables, and well his own little finger, but that was last year and he had passed it off as an accident, while in reality, he was experimenting. That was the only time he lied.



He took out a piece of raw meat from the deep freezer and placed it on the table as silently as he could. He then touched the red meat with his hand. As he felt his fingers run through the cold dead meat, he could feel it breathing, as if it had life. Too hard and no fun, he thought, as he held the carving knife in his hand. He breathed hot air on it and waited with pleasure as it became softer and tender. He then positioned his knife and applied pressure while drawing back; a perfect curve – in a semicircle. Wow, he thought, so deep and so beautiful. Meat had the perfect texture for cutting – far better than cushion or bread.



The next day as Grandpa went for his jogging, he smelled a foul stench. As he walked further he caught a glimpse of something bloody in the bushes. Holding a handkerchief to his nose, he went ahead and investigated. He saw it and his eyes widened with fear. It was a dog – or rather its head. A severed head of a dog lay there with flies buzzing all over it. Grandpa turned around and ran as fast as he could to home.



“Roger?” he called out but there was no response. He sat down, panting on the cozy sofa cushion and before he knew it, his senility betrayed him and he lay there snoring loudly. While Grandpa was in a deep slumber Roger walked in with a bloody knife in his hand. With his free hand, he touched Grandpa’s stomach and felt how it rhythmically expanded and contracted with every breath. There was something about living meat that dead pork from the fridge just did not have – so soft, so warm, so … alive. He found Grandpa’s bellybutton and squirming with pleasure, aimed the tip of the knife there.