The Spoon and the Knife
The Spoon and the Knife
One night, in the dark of the drawer, the spoon turned to the knife and said, “Why are you so sharp?”
“It’s just my nature,” said the knife, surprised to be spoken to suddenly after all these years of silence. “It’s how I was made.”
And the spoon, which had been contemplating asking the knife this question for a long time and had finally gotten up the nerve to do so, said, “Who made you?”
“The same man who made you,” said the knife.
The knife had been envious of the spoon for as long as it could remember. Countless nights they’d been laid down together at the table, and the knife had watched as the spoon was dipped gently in soup and raised tremblingly to the mouth of the woman who was old now but who had once been so young, so beautiful. She only used the knife to cut her meat, then set it aside. The knife sensed that she loved the spoon and the fork more than she loved it.
“What are you thinking about?” the knife asked. Now that it had been spoken to it felt like talking.
“I’m thinking,” the spoon, which was tired of soup and mouths, which wanted more, said, “I’m thinking, in my next life, I want to be a knife.”