A chef’s knife raised high, its blade glinting in the glow of a floor lamp. With a black sculpted handle that sat firmly in the palm, it didn’t slip while dicing onions or slicing through chicken breast. A droplet of orange juice hung suspended, flung off the edge of the recently sharpened blade. Two hands gripped the handle, while the tip pointed menacingly downward.

The woman wielding the knife had ragged fingernails and work-roughened hands. She’d seen thirty-seven birthdays but deep worry lines and a perpetual frown aged her. Thin lips drew back from her teeth in a snarl. The salmon-coloured cardigan she wore sagged in the place where she’d stretched it over her ample bosom. Overweight from a lifetime of verbal abuse, but also hardened. Muscles bunched in her arms as she readied to plunge the knife deep into a man's back.

The man, slightly hunched over as though sensing the approaching finality, held a television remote In one hand while the other balled into a fist. Greying hair stuck out haphazardly on his head, messed by the pillow he’d left moments before. His stained singlet reeked of alcohol and the cigarette clamped between his downturned lips leaked ash where he stood. Unemployed for eight years, cast out of a specialised industry because of negligence. The settlement had been a windfall and celebrating it produced the son over which he now stood.

The boy on the floor lay on his side, propped up on a pointy elbow while the other skinny arm warded off the man above. As much as he would like to forget the man or this moment, he would never manage because more of his father appeared in the mirror with every passing year. The memory burnt a wounded path across his mind, causing trauma to nestle itself deep within. He would forever be frozen in this moment, blaming it for every poor decision he made in his life.

Frozen