Slice

I shifted my legs to the ground and stretched them out. I was sitting on the couch with my best friend, watching a creepy episode of the Twilight Zone, the one with the creeper who stalks the chick on her way to Los Angeles, and it turns out that she is actually dead. Anyway, it was starting to get dark and I decided we should start watching a happier episode lest we get entirely freaked out and not be able to turn the lights off during our sleepover. “Addie, come help make dinner” Of course my mom would call me now. Perhaps it was actually a good thing; preparing dinner would take my mind off the horrors on the screen. All the same, I put up a fight. “But I have a friend over… she doesn’t want to help…” I knew it was a pathetic excuse for an excuse, but I really did not want to peel carrots while my best friend was over. “Sarah is a guest, she doesn’t have to help. Unless she wants to…” to which Sarah laughed and snuggled deeper into the fuzzy dinosaur quilt she was nestling in.

    I reluctantly stretched my arms above my head and, after recoiling in pain of hitting my knuckles on the table directly behind the couch, stumbled dizzily to my feet. I adjusted my skinny jeans so they were not riding up past my belly-button and slid to the kitchen in my overly-large socks. My mother met me with a head of cauliflower and a large knife.  Now, for the record, I had never successfully butchered a head of cauliflower, still have not mastered the art to this day. I stressed this fact to my mother, whose usual reply was “It will be a learning experience!” She didn’t disappoint me. “There is always a time to learn! “ She replied, and handed me the large white plant and the weapon. 

   I studied the cauliflower intently before slicing into it, considering the quickest way to put it out of its misery. “Addie, stop stalling and cut the cauliflower!” my mother was apparently in no mood for strategizing. I decided the best way to kill the poor vegetable was to cut it straight in half, which I proceeded to do. The knife sliced through the white meat of the head of cauliflower with a satisfying crunch.  The head split in half and fell in opposite directions on the cutting board. I now inspected the two halves and pondered the correct procedure from here on. I was clueless, so I requested advice from a much wiser vegetable surgeon. “Figure it out” my mother replied to my question, so I picked up one of the halves in my left hand, holding it securely in my palm.

      Gripping the large knife in my right hand securely, I slowly lowered the shining blade to the stem of the miserable plant. My plan was to remove it much like you would remove an apple core, making a round scooping motion until only the little sprouts were left. Like I said, that was my plan. However, it did not end up going as smoothly as I made it sound.  

   As the knife began its plunge into the white juicy meat, everything began to move in slow motion. The knife blade picked up speed and, instead of turning to complete the scooping motion, shot straight down, through the stem, through the sprouts, through my palm. Interestingly enough, it didn’t hurt. It stung a little bit, but it was mostly just shocking. Nobody else witnessed my moment of brilliance, so I dropped the knife and the butchered vegetable on the counter and looked into the deep gash, which was beginning to fill with hot blood. For a split moment I could see the pale pink muscle before it was flooded in dark red blood which proceeded down my palm and started to drip off my hand.  “Oh crap” was all I could manage to whisper at the sight. “What did you do?” my mother asked without even looking. “I sliced more than the cauliflower!” I yelled, but by this time I was already through the dining room and up the stairs in the bathroom, smashing cotton balls and Kleenex’s to absorb the waterfall of red in my palm.  I heard my mom shriek below me as she found blood on her kitchen knife.  “Now who is going to cut the cauliflower for dinner?” leave it to my sympathetic mother. Anyway, the doctors whipped out their needles and planted three blue stitches in my palm (which were accompanied by seven evil shots) and wrapped it in several layers of purple bandage and I was sent home to eat the cauliflower, which Sarah had been set to prepare after my accident.