Knifethrower

The curtains part dramatically. Bright red. Blood red. The lights shine, blaze, pretend they’re the sun tonight. Anything goes when you’re on stage.

The man in the velvet purple coat and tall stiff top hat bows. His coat, in the fake sunlight, sparkles. The crowd claps. A couple of people whistle. Most of them just want him to get on with it.

“May I have a volunteer?” he calls. “A volunteer to the stage please.”

Some of the youngsters, the ones who do not know why the adults let them come yet, raise their hands and desperately cry, “Pick me! Pick me!”

The man in the velvet coat laughs and smiles, twirling his waxed mustache until his cheeks are glowing cherry red. He points to a girl of nine, her blonde hair done in two loose braids by her ears. She grins and hurries onstage while the other young ones frown and hiss their jealousy.

“Thank you, thank you!” the man says. “Now, if you please,” he tells the girl, “stand right over there with your back against the wall.”

She walks to the opposite end of the stage and stands board straight against the wall, still smiling.

The man calls over his assistant, who brings him a leather bound box. The man takes it from him and opens it as dramatically as the curtains opened.

Inside are six freshly sharpened silver blades.

The crowd claps a bit louder. They begin to sit on the edge of their seats.

The man in the velvet coat takes one of the knives from its casing and holds it up to the audience in a rather showy manner. Whetting their appetite with whetted blades. Tension spins between the seats in the crowd. A web of apprehension. No one can move. Except the girl with the braids, who smiles even wider, excited into fidgeting.

Schwwwzing!

The knife the man throws shaves the peach fuzz off her earlobe. She is struck into absolute stillness, body rigidly rigid – eyebrows, dual drawn bowstrings over her O-eyes.

The audience lets out a breath. The tension builds once more, quicker this time. They have all unconsciously been pulled to the edge of their seats.

The man takes another knife. The theater is utterly silent

The girl looks at him with her wide eyes sending out the words, What are you doing? I didn’t sign up for this! But the man ignores her, of course.

Schwwwzing!

The second knife lands, this time by her right hand.

The audience groans, shifts, shuffles.

Third knife thrown. Stabs the wall by her left side. Collective exhale.

Fourth knife thrown. Stabs the wall inside her thighs. Collective inhale.

Fifth knife thrown. Stabs the wall by her other ear. Collective shouts of frustration. Some stand up to yell like primitive beings, calling, craving blood.

The man in the velvet coat takes out the final knife. Everyone sits. Is still. Is quiet. People know this is it. The moment they’ve been waiting for. The moment that will make up for the five teasing knives. It has to be.

The girl has thin tears staining her cheeks by now. She looks wildly around, betrayed by the man, betrayed by the audience, betrayed by her own enthusiasm. The knives pin her in place, promises of what’s to come.

The man holds the knife between his two hands, shining it in the false stage suns until it blinds the audience. He waits. He smiles. Silver fillings show.

And he throws it.

Schwwwzing.

The punctuated hit thudding with deadly finality. The silence choking the air. The lights too bright to see.

Then a breath, a heartbeat. The girl opens her eyes and looks up, sees the last knife stabbed into the infinitesimal space just above her head. She exhales loudly.

The audience, exhales loudly as well. With much less relief than the girl, however. They grumble, push themselves back in their chairs, become aware of the individuals in their collective mass once more in order to find someone to complain to.

The man in the velvet coat claps for the girl as he walks forward, inciting the people in the audience to half-heartedly slap their hands together a couple of times as well.

“Thank you, thank you!” he tells her, smiling silver broadly. He reaches forward and takes her hand, drawing the girl out of her nest of knives. She has to rip a few hairs out of the top of her head where the blade stuck them into the wall.

When she’s found her seat, the man thanks the audience as well for a fantastic turnout, and hopes aloud, as everyone shuffles and collects their belongings in order to exit the theater, that they will all come back again.

Which he knows for a fact they will. Because at some point the tables will turn. At some point his aim will be off. At some point one less pair of eyes will sparkle in the neon sunlight.

And he knows that they wouldn’t miss that possibility for the world.