The first knife is small but ornate. It has a hilt of bleached scrimshaw depicting the Julia Set in vertigo-inducing detail; its blade is a rough hewn window into the moonless night sky and its wicked edge is just sharp enough to cut you free of your miserable life story.
🔪🌑
Cut open your life story under the light of the blazing moon. Reach into your narrative’s screaming corpse and draw the second knife from its chest. It has a hilt of splintered rib, with a hungry toothlike blade. With this you can saw open the world, and let in the crushing depths.
🔪🌕
On the night of the sharpest newborn moon, saw through the leathery skin of the world and rip the third knife from the gnawing void beyond. Its blade curves in an alpha wave and its hilt is heavy with the weight of reality. Use this to slash through their gauze of lies.
🔪🌒
When the magic of the full moon fades into the banal; when you are ready to give up; pick up the fourth knife. It’s been in front of you all along. Its ABS hilt holds a blade that boils with memetic mutation between pulsetoothed serrations. Use this to carve a new reality.
🔪🌖
As moonlight turns to glittering fangs, and friends turn to enemies, take the fifth knife from the place you’ve always refused to look. This is your last chance. A scorpion tail hilt holds a blade dripping with poison and vile darkness. You know what to do with this one.
🔪🌘
The sixth knife is easy, you’re already using it: a glass-bladed straight razor wrapped in a barbed wire hilt, with edges so sharp they dissolve into quantum uncertainty. Draw it out from between the Is and the Isn’t. With this, you can cut yourself free of the timeline.
🔪🌗
Once your hopes are spent and all paths lead to ruin, reach backward and pull the seventh knife from That Which Was. A single chunk of smoky crystal with a simple hilt of wrapped spike tape, it glows faintly with the redshifted light of days gone by. Use this to sever yourself from the past.
🔪🌔
When a young moon hangs twixt light and dark, reach through the gaping hole in your soul and draw the eighth knife from the void beyond. The scissor’s blades are jittering oscilloscope lightning with a looping hilt of escher-braided red and gold. Use this to snip the threads of fate.
🔪🌓
In the moment of totality, when sun and moon embrace, reach into the syzygy and draw the ninth knife, the last knife, from the eye of the eclipse. A snickersnack blade of pure, sharp, thought, with a bandersnatch hilt of hardened will, your will, and a ribbon of absolute love, your love, running down the tang. Use this to do the impossible.
🔪👁️
