A Clear Cut Case of Castration

Psych 101. Textbook. I thought I was more interesting than this.

Back in college I aced all my psychology classes. You’d think I’d have more respect for this religion masquerading as a science.

I was at work, the local airport, a place I worked at years ago. I was a line tech, which basically was a gas station attendant for small aircraft and the occasional bigger private or charter jet. I gassed ‘em up. I parked 'em. I tied 'em down. I hangared 'em. Every so often, I’d wash 'em, even detail 'em.

We had a waiting area with out-of-date airplane-related magazines, a couple vending machines, and a tv. Private aviation has not yet reached the level of private automobiling and the cornucopia that is the convenience store.

I was alone, as I am in most of my dreams. When an occasional other person does appear in my dream, they are exasperating, frustrating, alien-seeming, or just plain frightening. You know, like they are in waking life.

So I was alone and I was very excited about a new knife I had recently gotten. I had it on the counter behind me, near the cash register, sheathed. It was a big ol’ nasty hunting knife, as long as my forearm and razor sharp. I wanted a plane to land just so I could show it off to someone, but it was a quiet, empty day, strangely bright and still and sterile.

Finally, I couldn’t help myself. I had to take it out and look at it. When I pulled it out of the sheath, however, my jaw dropped. The knife was broken. The tip had snapped off somehow–not just the tip, but the whole top third of the knife had been wrenched off. I looked around the cash register and on the counter, but the rest of it wasn’t there. I looked on the floor, I looked everywhere, but it was gone.

I was devastated about my new knife, almost in tears. I kept looking at it and looking away, then looking at it again, thinking it can’t be true!

Finally, I sheathed it and dropped it in the the garbage. Just then, I remembered my other new knife, the one I had left in my car. It was even bigger and cooler and sharper than the broken one. I cherished the thought of my back-up knife like a juicy secret. If a plane lands, I thought, I’ll run out back to the parking lot and get it so I can show it off.

But no plane landed. The day remained bright and still and sterile, empty even though I was in it. I was happy, but I really, really wanted to see the even better, unbroken knife I had on reserve. Time passed, dream-like, as it does in waking life. It just miraculously becomes later somehow.

Screw it, I thought, I need to look at my knife. I went out back to my car and SURPRISE! that knife was broken, too. The whole tip: gone. Not only that, but it was bent and twisted. The metal had blued from an application of great heat.

My poor knife…

I was kneeling there on the car seat, sobbing, when I woke up covered in sweat. My heart was hammering in my chest and my usual morning wood was conspicuously absent.

Heh, heh. You don’t need Freud for that shit, people.