Warm in Soft Light

A story about a game played with a knife.

I couldn’t sleep. I picked up the mirror and tried to look over my shoulder. There wasn’t much to see, just the edge of the doorframe, the olive-colored wall. I angled the mirror a little farther and saw past the edge of the doorframe, through the open door, into the dark hallway. I thought I saw someone out there in the darkness, someone with dry, sunken pits where their eyes should be, but when I turned around, there was no one there. I put down the mirror. I waited to see if something would happen, but nothing did. It was all soft light around me. I put my hand down flat on the desk, I spread my fingers apart, I thought about watching G. sit for hours at the folding table in the tent at the site by the tomb and stab the knife down between his fingers spread out like this, do it over and over again, the knife driving into the surface of the table, digging little divots that became holes, became pits, he would do it with incredible speed, the knife a blur, no hesitation, too much for me to follow, too much for me to look at, sometimes, sometimes I had to turn away, lying on the cot, turned away, still hearing the sound, the steady ratatataratat, it drove me crazy, pretending not to hear the steady ratatataratat, just to prove a point, just to show I didn’t care, to show I didn’t care about the steady ratatataratat, it didn’t drive me crazy, to show he wasn’t anyone to me, which he wasn’t, of course, when it happened to him it didn’t mean anything more to me than if it had happened to anyone else, we never talked, not really, just what was necessary, nothing more than that, never any personal questions, anything beyond what our roles demanded, anything that might show the other something of ourselves, he always had a scowl on his face, a flat kind of scowl like it was burned in, that kind gets burned into some faces, you know, after long enough, it’s a problem, you see it more and more out in the world now, if you still go out in the world, I mean, if you still walk on the avenues and look into the windows and into the reflections on the water, people with burned-in faces, scowling, frowning, grimacing, never smiling, you never see someone with a smile burned into their face, only flatter, blunter emotions, apathy, negativity, and these burned-in faces like G. the one had don’t say anything, not really, they don’t tell you anything about what’s really going on underneath, they’re just there because something has to be there, there can’t be nothing, there can’t be no expression, no face, there has to be a face, we haven’t figured out how to get rid of that yet, no one has, it’s a problem, for some people it’s a problem, for G. it was a problem, you know, probably that’s how he would have wanted it, he would have rather he didn’t have to have an expression, if he didn’t need to have a face at all, he would have preferred that, he would have preferred for there to be nothing, but there had to be something, there has to be, he couldn’t change that, he couldn’t get rid of his face or his body, and so he just scowled instead, the scowl was a placeholder, it was there by default, it was almost funny, like a cartoon, I always thought his face was almost like a cartoon, everything about him, I thought, was almost like a cartoon, but it wasn’t like anything really, his scowl wasn’t like anything, and he carried himself in a particular way, as well, of course, you know, he carried himself in a way where you could never tell how long it had been since he slept, one hour or seventy-two hours it was always the same with him, the set of his shoulders was always the same, the length of his strides was always the same, the way he set his feet down like he was willing the ground to be there, commanding it, like the ground might not have really existed until just that moment he needed it to exist, like the sand had come into being just so his boot could leave its impression in it, like it was the ground’s purpose that it be beneath him, if it had been anyone but him there wouldn’t have been anything there, their foot would have slipped right through, they would have fallen and fallen and probably never stopped falling, but not him, he made everything solid beneath him, just where he needed it to be, and it didn’t even make a difference to him, it didn’t make a difference if the ground had been there before or not, it didn’t matter if it’s whole purpose was to be beneath him, he didn’t think about it, he didn’t care, it never crossed his mind that he should care, one way or the other it was completely the same to him, it was immaterial, yes, that was how he walked, every step was like that, every single one exactly like that, always perfect, no hesitation, I never saw him make a wrong step until the day that he did, of course, the day of the morning patrol where he put his foot down and heard something click beneath it, we both heard it, we heard the click, and he froze, and I froze, and he looked back at me and he made that gesture, he made that shooing motion, you know the one, like you would towards a stray dog that was following you, and that you needed to drive away because you didn’t have anything for it, not anymore, you had nothing for it, there was nothing you could do for him, you would only bring him trouble, and it was the right move to make, I suppose, because I reacted like a stray dog, which maybe I was back then, a little bit, which maybe he knew, maybe he could see, maybe he could always see that about me, I don’t know, but in any case I reacted the way I was supposed to, the gesture did what that gesture was supposed to do, I stepped back, I stepped back again, I fell back behind some rubble and took cover by the side of the trail, and the whole time he stayed perfectly still, he just stood there, his foot firmly pressed down where he had put it, where he had put it down as certain as any other step he ever took and we heard something click beneath it, he stood there shooing me, driving me off, same scowl on his face that was always there, until I fell behind the rubble, then there was the sound, then it happened, I didn’t see it, I only heard it, then it was over, I was there behind the rubble, I only had a few cuts and scrapes, superficial, just scratches, and he wasn’t standing there anymore, no, I didn’t really know him, he didn’t really mean anything to me, but he was always sitting at that table, it’s true, I remember it, I can’t help but remember it, late into the night sometimes, well after nightfall and still, ratatataratat, no lights of course, we never had lights at the site, not after nightfall, it wasn’t allowed, was against all the protocols, we did all our work by the sun, everything that was necessary had to be done by the sun, or if not by the sun by the moon, we got used to the moon, the nights were almost always clear there, it was almost always easy to find it, it was like a friend to us, when it wasn’t there we would feel lost, or at least I would, I would pray to it sometimes, I don’t think he ever did, he wasn’t religious, I don’t think, I think faith wasn’t something that was part of him, or it was something that took such a different shape in him that I couldn’t see it as such, couldn’t recognize it, but still, ratatataratat, still, ratatataratat, in the dark, all those nights in the tent at the site by the tomb in the dark, and somehow never stabbing himself, never cutting himself, not even a nick or a scratch, not even once, his hands always perfect, the knife always perfect, always perfect every time, for hours, all day, all night, ratatataratat, divots becoming holes becoming pits in the folding table, no hesitation. I looked at my hand. I took my hand off my desk. I was warm in soft light. It was all warm soft light around me. The mirror was on the table, I couldn’t sleep.