Knife Meditation

I have a new roommate. His name (I think) is Fallah. His uncle is an engineer and the deputy minister for public works and recreation. Fallah works with "bugs" in the microbiology faculty. I asked him what kind, and he said cholera.

Sometimes he comes home at lunch, and I speak to him while he eats oversized apples that he cuts with a one dollar knife he bought at the dollar store. He says knives scare him so he buys little ones. So far in his knife rack I have seen the small blue handled knife, a plastic knife, an exacto knife and some piece of shit that broke.

I told him the exacto knife would get dirty, and that it reminded me of cutting pizza with scissors, so to compensate he wiped the blade off with some paper towel before retracting it. Two days later he told me the knife had turned black, so he threw that shit out.

I asked him why knives scare him and he told me it was because of Freddy Kruegar and the movies. I have a big knife which I use to chop vegetables with, and I leave it out sometimes to give him a case of the scares. When I'm feeling angry, or when he is once again snorting snot from his nose and into his mouth and swallowing it, I get the knife and start cleaning it. I call it knife meditation. I clean it mindfully and with intention. Sometimes, if the weights he lifts in his room are banging down on the ground... I put an old hockey mask on and start cleaning the knife. He hasn't seen me yet, but I am imagining it in harder times.