The Knife's Edge

The knife’s edge rested on your throat. It was dull but capable.

“Please,” you said. “I won’t tell.”

But the knife only whispered like wind grazing leaves.

*****

“Whadda we got?” Another detective asked while a patrolman shined a light on your slumped corpse.

They took samples and pictures. They catalogued your riddled life with numbers and alphabet soup scribbled on plastic baggies and brown envelopes. They asked the public for more.

Eventually, you became another file. Decayed, dusty, devoured by a box crammed with dead ends. And I walked by that locked room countless times, never really thinking about you.

Who the fuck am I kidding?

That knife lives inside a Bible I keep in the dresser drawer beside my bed. I’d come home after a long shift and set my gun and badge on top of it, and I’d sometimes read scripture with the help of the knife’s edge.

And for a while, I thought they’d catch me. But no one came. My wife used to tell people about the knife inside the Bible, and we’d all laugh at how eccentric I am.

“Where did it come from?” Someone might ask.

“A friend.” Always a friend.

And leave it at that. No one pried. No one connected me to you.

“Good job,” I’d hear. “Keep it up, detective.” Because I was good. Too good to be remembered in that sentimental way we prefer.

The day of my retirement, they got me gift cards and cake on sale, and the Chief said, “What a career.”

To tell you the truth, I miss you. Sometimes, I visit that dark place where everyone found each other, and I think about how grating the knife was. How fast you fell. How quick I had to be to catch you because I was determined to break your fall. But, in the end, I forgot to break mine while spent my life breaking so many of you.