by Ed Higgins
Kitchen Knife (n.)
1. A standard kitchen tool consisting of a sharp blade attached to a handle intended for cutting, peeling, chopping, slicing, and dicing.
2. Used primarily for food preparation (see also BUTCHERING; BACKSTABBING; JACK THE RIPPER; DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS).
3. Operated by hand, although some powered by electricity. Dangerous when employed inattentively.
4. May be lubricated by food juices, blood, or tears — as in onion preparation.
5. Should not be operated under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or while experiencing severe anger.
6. The most common weapon in domestic violence. A three-to-one ratio of kitchen knife murders over guns.
7. Slang: To betray or attempt to defeat by underhanded means. You backstabbed me again with a fucking butcher knife to my own mother, for Christ’s sake!
8. The domestic utensil blamed in a fatal stabbing after a California couple’s New Year’s Eve party argument over tacos.
9. A good set of kitchen knives can make any food preparation job easier, but personal safety must always be a user’s main concern.
10. Keeping kitchen knives sharp is essential. If a knife is blunt you have to force it and there is a real danger of accidental cuts or severe injury.
Related articles: KITCHEN HEALTH & SAFETY; CUT WOUNDS; KNIFE WOUND SUTURE MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES; METAPHORICAL CUTS; KNIFE SHARPENING TRICKS; HOW TO ARGUE WITH YOUR SPOUSE OR PARTNER CONSTRUCTIVELY; REMAINS OF “BOG MAN” FOUND WITH SHARPENING STONES WORN AS PENDANT.
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Ed Higgins teaches creative writing and literature at George Fox University, south of Portland, OR. He lives on a small farm with an assorted menagerie of animals including a Manx barn cat named Velcro. His poems and short fiction have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Pindeldyboz, and Twisted Tongue, as well as such online journals as CrossConnect, Word Riot, The Centrifugal Eye, Mannequin Envy, and JMWW, among others.
Tagged as:
Ed Higgins,
Fiction Noir,
Short Story
by Stephanie Dickinson
“And the thug takes the girl over to New Jersey in the cab and kills her and rapes her and does all these terrible things to her in front of his prostitute girlfriend. The thug is so stupid, he uses her cell phone, and the cops trace it back to him.” — Bill O’Reilly
#1
Even walking two steps behind you there is still so much sidewalk and many eyes. Blue peacocks. “Don’t look at the stores,” you say. “They have cameras.” The video can capture what I see–the murdered girl riding between your shoulder blades, your thumbprints in her neck. Her white skirt and silver belt. Her red tears. Cold. That’s why you’re wearing sweatpants in ninety degrees. You’re ice. Because she is. You keep cracking your knuckles, the fig cookies smack, your tongue paddle mashing seeds and saliva. Since we left New Jersey you can’t seem to stop eating. Fruits, nuts, slugs. A dim sky hangs starless between buildings. Ticker tape Times Square. BODY OF MISSING NEW JERSEY GIRL FOUND IN DUMPSTER. News chases the lit up letters into the blank. Legs fishnetted, see-through girls walk by in bursts of perfume. Lilac. Rose. Diamond nose studs in the gray face of the night. You stink like homicide.
[click to continue…]
Tagged as:
New Literature Online,
Noir,
Short Story
Forgiveness
We are featuring several works of flash fiction during the month of February.
We’ve asked writers Kathy Fish, Larry Fondation and Brandi Wells to riff on a variety of themes.
In this installment all three writers contemplate forgiveness.
Enjoy.
Dandelion, by Kathy Fish
It’s scary, driving in a snow storm at night. My dad used to say just get behind another car and keep just enough distance to see its taillights. Focus on those lights and you’ll be all right. But who was the guy in front following? My dad used to tell me that he had the utmost confidence in me, but he used the word utmost too freely. I know, and my mother will remind me, that I was mostly a disappointment. — Read the entire story here.
Baby, by Larry Fondation
She had the baby, but it was hard for her. Her placenta broke up during delivery and she bled a lot. — Read the entire story here.
Grown, by Brandi Wells
Someone hands you the phone and you see him lying face up, face dark red and lips so purple they’re almost black. The lady on the phone explains how to perform CPR. You bend over his body, trying to blow air into those stiff purple lips. That body, that rigid body with its unblinking stare. Hands and neck and face, all darkened. You keep trying to blow air into him but nothing happens. — Read the entire story here.
Tagged as:
New Literature Online,
Short Story
