The Cut Direct

After I’ve spaced out on yet another important work deadline, my supervisor Claudia corners me by the ladies’ room.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I begin for what feels like the hundredth time. She leans in so close that I can smell her morning coffee on her breath.

“Is this still about Michael?” she asks, her dark eyes locked on mine. I nod, afraid that the tears will start and never stop if I open my mouth.

She sighs and studies my face for a minute, as if the answer to all my problems is written on there.

“I know someone who can help you,” she says, shaking her head. “I’ll send you the info.”

I figure she’s going to shoot me the number for the employee assistance hotline, and I’m not keen on telling some stranger about what happened. But I’ll play along if it means I can keep my job.

Instead, when I get her email, it’s an address.

“Madame Catherine’s

1207 Parris St NW

Don’t be in that neighborhood after dark. Leave work early if you have to. — C”

I stare at my monitor. Who the hell is Madame Catherine, and how can she help me?

She’s probably one of those “psychics” who separates suckers from their money by telling them everything they want to hear, and I don’t have the time — or the cash flow — for that horseshit.

I Google the name. Nothing comes up, and that’s not encouraging. Who doesn’t even have a website?

But later on I start thinking about you again and hearing “This just isn’t working out, Sage.” I’ve been reading the same sentence of the same report for the last half hour without retaining a word of it.

I’ll try anything if it will cut you out of my head.

The next day I leave work early and take the 640 bus to Madame Catherine’s. By the time the bus reaches the stop closest to the address, I get why Claudia told me not to be here at night. Whatever storefronts are open look grimy as hell, and there are mountains of trash — empty beer bottles, old newspapers, and fast food wrappers — all over the sidewalk. Sleeping bags that may or may not contain people are piled in abandoned doorways. The atmosphere matches the threatening gray sky.

I think about summoning an Uber and getting the hell out of here, but there’s a window glowing neon purple in the afternoon gloom. “MADAME CATHERINE’S” is painted in black Gothic lettering on the glass.

It’s a psychic. Or a fucking palm reader. This is ridiculous, I tell myself. But I came all this way. And Claudia has never seemed like the mumbo jumbo type. And besides, what if she really can help?

The heavy glass door creaks when I push it open. Shelves weighed down with bottles and jars line the walls. I smell a scent like the wet ground after a heavy rain.

A woman comes out from a back room and I blink at her. I was expecting someone with a headscarf, flowing hair, and shawls and skirts everywhere — the whole fortune teller trip.

This woman? She looks like she stepped out of a TV show from the 1950s. Her hair is curled in a tight red helmet around her head, and she’s wearing cat-eye glasses, a cardigan, and a slim pencil skirt that I’d never be able to pull off. She could be 40 or 70; I really can’t tell.

“Greetings. May I help you?” What’s her accent? English? Irish?

“Someone told me to come see you.”

“You’re in so much pain,” she says. “Goodness. It almost hurts me to look at you.”

“I’m … sorry?” There’s nothing about this that isn’t confusing me.

She raises a red-nailed fingertip to her chin and stares at me.

“I can’t help you harm anyone,” she says.

“I don’t want that,” I lie. Well. It’s not a lie now, I guess. But when I first found out about the co-worker you’d been seeing before you dumped me, I entertained a few violent scenarios.

“I just want to forget him,” I say finally. Those damn tears are blurring my eyes again.

“Hm.” The fingertip stays pressed against her chin. “You know, I’ve just the thing for that. Or it used to be the thing, except that nobody prints photographs anymore. They keep everything on their phones. Have you got many pictures of yourself with him?”

I have to think about it. Aside from a few shots your mom or our friends took, and a couple of strips of goofy photobooth images, I don’t have that many hard-copy photographs of us.

“I can print something out,” I say. “They probably wouldn’t be great pictures, though.”

“They shouldn’t need to be. They just need to be in a form you can cut.”

“I can do that,” I say.

She leads me to the back of the shop, where an impressive and scary assortment of chalices and pointy things fill a glass case under the counter. She kneels down behind the case and rummages around for a few seconds before selecting something and popping back up. She’s holding a pair of scissors.

But I have scissors.

She nods like she heard what I thought. “These don’t look like much, but they’ll do what you want.” She places them on the counter. They’re dull steely gray and look like ordinary household scissors, but when I look more closely I see weird symbols etched in the blades.

“How much?” I ask. I’m expecting some exorbitant sum, because people will charge lots of money for old shit like that even if it’s worthless.

“Fifteen dollars,” she says. “If you bring them back when you’re done with them, I’ll refund that.”

That’s not as bad as I expected, and I hand over my Visa.

“Give me your dominant hand,” she says. I hold out my right hand. She’s not going to read my palm after all, is she?

No, she is not. She turns my hand over and starts tracing shapes in my palm and oh god it hurts like fire and I yank my hand back.

She glares at me over those cat-eye frames. “Every time you do that, I’ll have to start over.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Activating the tool.”

My eyes are watering from the pain, but I really need this to work. I hold my hand out again, biting my lip hard. A few tears leak from my eyes as she finishes moving her finger over my palm.

I’m expecting blisters and scars when she lets me take my hand back, but my palm looks perfectly normal and the pain fades quickly.

She looks me in the eye and tells me what I have to do.

Back home I don’t even bother to change out of my work clothes before starting.

Nine pictures, she said. Just of the two of us; if there’s anyone else in the shot, the tool won’t work. That would confuse the energy, she said, and I nodded like that made sense. I fish through Facebook and Instagram and my email until I’ve got them.

We looked so happy together. I feel a burning hatred when I look at those pictures now, and I hate my stupid hopeful lovestruck puppy face as much as I hate your calmer one.

I print them all out and sit down at my kitchen table with the scissors. I start cutting.

And my right palm starts burning again. I have to put the scissors down and take a deep breath. She said the pain would be over quickly, both in my hand and in my heart, if I just kept going.

So I do.

The pictures look shitty on normal paper from my normal printer, but I study the lines between us and then cut carefully, separating your body from mine. That’s hard to do in the old photos, taken when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It’s easier in the recent shots, where an extra person or two could fit between us, but even then the tears of pain in my eyes make it hard to see.

But the blades make a satisfying snick sound as I cut. I cut around your soft longish blond hair, separating it from my black hair. I avoid looking at your eyes; the dull paper makes them look gray, but they’re a light and intense green I always found hypnotic.

I finish with the first picture, whimpering, wondering how I’m ever going to get through all nine without passing out from the pain in my right hand.

But as the two pieces of the picture drop to my table and slide apart, something changes. My hand doesn’t hurt as much, and looking at you doesn’t hurt as much either.

Eight to go. I keep cutting, and I bite my lip hard against the burning.

Somewhere inside me it’s like you’re fighting your way to the surface of my mind, not wanting me to forget. Remember when I sent that singing telegram guy to your office for your birthday? Snip. Remember when your dad almost walked in on us in the guest bedroom at Thanksgiving? Snick.

By the time I’m done with the ninth picture, I’m numb. Nothing hurts anymore, but I just feel tired.

There’s one more thing I have to do. I gather up all the paper and carry it to the kitchen. I fill the sink with water, because I’m not sure I trust myself with fire.

I dig up some matches and burn the paper scraps, watching as they blacken and curl and fall into the water. The smell is sour and acrid.

When that’s done, it’s like feeling healthy again after having the flu for weeks. I swear, the colors in my apartment just got brighter.

After wiping up the soggy scraps, I cook some sesame noodles for myself. The smells of ginger and garlic make me realize I’m starving, that I haven’t had a decent meal in ages.

The scissors are still on my kitchen table. I’m not sure $15 is worth going back to Madame Catherine’s scary neighborhood again, but I’ll think about it.

Later on I’m curled up in my armchair in the living room watching “Black Mirror” when there’s a knock at the front door. It’s nine thirty. Who the hell’s coming by this late, and without calling?

But the person keeps knocking, and I finally give in and go to the door. What if it’s a friend in trouble?

I look through the peephole. There’s a guy standing in the hallway; longish blond hair obscures most of his face.

“Yes?”

“Sage? Can I come in, please? We need to talk.”

I know I shouldn’t open the door, but I’m too curious.

He stares down at me with very intense green eyes. “I think maybe I made a mistake,” he says.

I shake my head.

“Who are you?” I ask the strange man at my door. “How do you know my name?”