Smoothness

The handle of my knife protrudes from beneath the pillow I rest my head upon. When an infant I had no pacifier, rather, my mother would give me some small smooth object for me to hold in my hand, to quiet me. My knife handle is hard, a dark brown wood, surrounding the cold fixed steel of the blade. A thing if beauty, as David once said, to see and to touch.

It was a birthday present from my father. I used to use it for carving, and sometimes when spear fishing to clean my catch. But I don't do those things anymore. I lost the will to carve after my rejection from the school of art, and one needs to be near water to spear.

Now its job is mainly for something comforting to grasp when the night is strange. I wouldn't use it to stab someone. It doesn't have a hilt, I'd probably just cut my fingers. It isn't really a weapon. It's a Bowie knife, clipped point. Long. More threatening certainly than my Swiss Army Knife, which I always feel would be a laughably stupid thing to use in a fight.

But I still get afraid at night, during the day too, but that isn't when I need to sleep. Just the smooth feel of it under my fingertips calms me.

I don't find it that strange that I do this. We each of us find solace in materialism, in what we can know is, "Really there". I like to feel the realness.