Managing Editor Lisa Ampleman: This story about knife sellers begins with a book being cut down the spine and builds to a meditation on the weight and heft of words. Matt Barrett has constructed a microfable for the era of multilevel marketing and of regret and anxiety.
To hear Matt read the story, click below:
The Salesmen
The teens who sold kitchenware as part of a pyramid scheme sat across from us in our living room, slicing a book they’d brought to prove their knives could cut through anything. It was a hardback. First their knife broke its spine, before dividing the covers. The boys looked at us with pimply faces and rubbery arms, adding, with rehearsed but silly grins: It’s the hardest book we’ve read. We smiled, agreeing to the joke. Could it cut through Moby Dick? we asked. It could, they said. Ulysses? It could. How about an apology? They considered this for a moment before they answered, Yes. Forgive me? Just those words? they asked, and we answered, Just those words. It would slice right through them, said the boys. We took our time, wondering which words might be toughest to cut. You’re thinking about this wrong, they said, laying the knife down on the table. It’s not the words you want to cut. No? The two boys shook their heads. This baby can cut through anything. You lay your sorrys on the table, it slices them. Your confessions on the counter, it dices them. You fit your fears and worries on a dinner plate, it chops them up like celery. The boys put the knife back in the gray felt box it came in. What you’re willing to cut, it cuts, they said. What you’re not, well—they looked at us, their bags already packed, the straps thrown over their shoulders—we didn’t come to sell you a miracle.
Matt Barrett is a writer from Pennsylvania. Some of his recent stories have appeared in Threepenny Review, The Sun, Best Microfiction (2022 & 2023), and Best Small Fictions (2023). He teaches creative writing at Gettysburg College.
