All the time on the news you hear of a sibling murdering their brother, or a son their mother, a husband their wife. Relative homicide. And then sitting beside you your best friend, or maybe your brother will gasp, frown, and wonder aloud how anyone could ever do such a thing. Well, I’d like to tell you how. It doesn’t take much.

“Take it.”

Two yards of bubble wrap half crumpled, and half strewn over my lap for minute physical release. I popped the sacs of air one at a time, careful not to take my eyes off the woman sitting in front of me on the bed. She looked just like me, but she was dead. She didn’t have any eyes. Her hair-my hair, was greasy and clumping. We were both sitting in the same position, but I had the bubble wrap, and she had something else.

She held out her hand and said again, “Take it.” The funny thing about big knives is they look almost fake. Big knives stay in kitchens, on television, and in the movies. When you see one in front of you, hovering over your bedspread? It’s a whole different story.

“Take the fucking knife,” she hissed. The tone of her voice made me cringe, she sounded just like me. More than that it was the look coming from her empty eye sockets which told me that if I didn’t do it, the knife would no longer be made available for my use. I wish I could say I didn’t want to use it. But I did, oh god I did. Bubble wrap can only release flurrying hate and vengeful intentions one pop at a time. In small increments. There was a wall building up inside of me, and one stone at a time wasn’t going to bring it down; not this time. When she smiled, I squeezed the bubbles one after the other, a smooth steady procession.

“Where’d you get the knife?” I asked. I didn’t have to though, I knew it was from the third drawer right by the coffee machine. Easy to recognize because I used it often to threaten my brother. It was the biggest, sharpest knife we had. Something inside me would know just how to use it.

“Doesn’t matter. Take it already,” she said.

“They’ll find out, and I’ll get caught.”

“You don’t care.”

“I know.”

“Come now, put those nimble fingers to good use.”

When she spoke I could smell the earth in-between her teeth. It was a sour smell. Her exposed arms were the color of the tatters she wore, and under the knife I could see a stark bone through a web of eaten flesh. The knife looked so clean, so right.

“Why don’t you have any eyes?”

“Justice is blind.”

I was aware of little else besides the fire-cracker explosions in my lap as I wrung the bubble wrap with my fists. Staring into my own empty eye sockets was maybe all that it took. I stared just a little too long.

“Give it to me,” I insisted, staring back evenly.

“You have to take it,” she said, laughing. I just laughed along with her.

She rocked from side to side for a bit waiting for me, and her spine clicked. It was an ugly sound, one that made me want to twist and crack my own spine, but I couldn’t. I would have to look away to do that. If I looked away she would offer the knife to my brother across the hall.  She wanted me to look away.

Not today, not ever again. I chuckled, and took it. It really was very funny, the way her vertebrae sounded off like castanets, and how the stench made my stomach curl. I was left with the sound of her soft fingers pinching the air bubbles, chuckling along with me, and swaying her castanet-click spine when I reached the door with  the clean weight of the knife in my hands; the grit from her palm transferred and pressed into mine. I said:

“Get off the bed, you’re getting it dirty.”

I didn’t have to turn around to know that she wasn’t there.