Knife (fragment)

This is about more than cutlery.

In the same way that my playing Loretta Lynn on repeat when I know that you hate old country is a precision move calculated to irritate you enough that the day takes on an itchy discordance but not so much that you work up the muscle to say something, this is about more than the sign. As one of those French theorists would say (Saussure, Derrida, Cixous - blah) this is about the signified.

And this knife signifies - what?

1. A dissatisfaction with the range of cooking utensils at your present. Ergo, a dissatisfaction with the present living situation. Ergo, a dissatisfaction with me.

2. A desire for precision cutting tools. If I listened to ol' Sigmund, I would diagnose this as castration anxiety. Maybe you want to get in there first. Chop-chop goes the phallus. Of course, it could just be that you are hacked off with the blunt saws presently at rest in the drawer. Hacked off. Hah.

3. An aspiration for a Le Creuset lifestyle. Shiny shiny, clean clean.

4. A need for straighter vegetable slices. See 2.

It is becoming somewhat of an obsession. I see it sheathed in crystalline blue plastic on the counter, daring me to close my shoddy paw around its handle. With this knife, I think, I could be the Platonic me: me, but better, neater.

I don't want to do anyone an injury .

I just want to chop: regimented row after row of courgettes, slivers of onion spooning prim lines of peppers, smiling occasionally as if to camera. 'See how easy it is?'

It is too small to cut bread with.

I use this thought as a comforter when the knife goes to the back of the cupboard, hidden within an intricate network of chickpea cans.

It is filed under grievances to come.