He was the kind of person who, while chopping onions at a friend’s party, proceeds to cut off his own finger—knuckles and all—and immediately, with thought to nothing else, worries how the host might react to the mess. The mess, a threat to his standing, an affront to his self-respect, the blood proof of his inability to do a simple task without injuring himself to the point of needing medical attention. The partygoers outside would soon find out, the festivities would end, and he’d be the cause. The stump could heal, but a wound to one’s status was stubborn, and his status was already suspect, what with the elimination—just two months before—of the position and career he hated, the one he needed for occasions such as this, where financial success was proof of one’s worth. He was now broke, and thus irrelevant. But there on the shale tile, as he stood alone in this beautiful, rational kitchen, sink pink with his blood, he gloved his hand with a towel, sat down, and called the medics, leaving the growing mess to someone else, someone not bleeding, maybe the host, who was currently discussing a recent trip to coastal Spain, and who was the kind of person who committed his life to having a massive, elegant headstone, etched with noble words, words that wouldn’t be read by anyone past the grandchildren, yes, yet another person who did good things to the right people and saved up for a killer grave. The kind of person he himself had been until this very moment, when he lost something valuable to find something important: a dead finger, unattached, in the sink, pointing at him.
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