You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine

by Alexandra Kleeman

Recall the parable of the knife: There were two brothers, identical in temperament but divided in spirit, each bearing much enmity toward the other. With their father’s death, they made to split his property equally in half. They were fortunate, for their father possessed two of each thing, every object set next to its twin in his ample abode. They commenced to halve his estate, and the portions were made exact—but for a single carving knife that had no partner. The two argued bitterly over this knife, whether to share it in increments of time or split blade from hilt and go their separate ways. Finally, proffering the knife’s edge to the throat of his sibling, the eldest suggested that he would take possession of the knife in its physical manifestation, while the younger might count himself the owner of the knife’s intangibles: its sharpness, form, and afterlife. They quickly parted ways, the eldest mounting his horse and pointing himself toward the village, while the younger lay supine, bleeding his life out at the side of the road. But the bargain was in the younger man’s favor after all: while the eldest prodded dully at supper with his lump of inherited matter, the younger lived far better in heaven with his knife at his side, singing knife-songs to the heavenly gathering and putting holes in the angels, one by one.