The Knife Thrower

A short story about using our true gifts.

Channing Teele
5 min readSep 21, 2022
Photo by Thanh Tran on Unsplash

When Kara turned 17 her parents gave her a gift for her birthday. The package felt heavy but not rigid. Her eyes brows furrowed in confusion, but she unwrapped it slowly, savoring the anticipation.

As the wrapping paper came off, it revealed a smooth leather case. She unfolded it before her to see a sparkling knife set.

As she carefully picked each one up, she marveled at the craftsmanship. Each knife radiated a unique energy. When she got to the smallest knife she paused at a small engraving on the handle, “You are more powerful than you will ever know.”

Tears welled in her eyes. The pit of her soul felt a magnetic pull towards the knives. At that moment, a piece of her that had always been missing finally returned.

Kara gasped in awe at how beautiful the knives were as time stood still. Then quickly she asked if she could go use them. Smiles beamed across her parents’ faces as they shook their heads in unison.

Kara darted to her friend’s house to show her the knives. Her friend went to pick one of the knives up and got a cut on her finger. Quickly, red flooded her hand.

The friend’s parents ran in and panicked. They were so concerned and yelled at Kara’s friend for playing with knives.

“What could you possibly be thinking playing with something so dangerous?!”

Kara tried to swallow the knot in her throat as she apologized to her friend. She quickly wrapped the knives up and left. Kara felt ashamed that her gift caused pain.

She tied her knives up tightly and decided not to play with them anymore.

They were too dangerous, so she hid them away.

Without the knives, she felt hollow and lost, but it was okay, at least this way, nobody would get hurt.

Years passed and Kara went through the normal ups and downs of life. She went to college and got a good job that she enjoyed but didn’t love.

Her parents decided to sell her childhood home, so she went back to help them clean her stuff out. She went into her closet and began packing up old clothes and books when out fell a ratty leather case.

Immediately, her heart fluttered. She had not seen her knives in so long. She took them out and began to weep.

Oh, how she had missed their magic.

She looked at them and frowned. They had become so dull sitting unused in a dusty closet.

She paused for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Kara was much older and while she still hadn’t forgiven herself for letting her friend get hurt, she knew she was smarter and able to be more careful. Plus, she missed the joy and bliss it brought her life.

She sharpened and shined the knives until they showed her true reflection. Once again, the child inside her and all the passion rushed back into her life.

Photo By Author

She had not felt this invigorated in so many years. Kara knew the knives were dangerous, but she just wanted to feel alive again. She would be by herself anyway; nobody else could get hurt.

So, she ran to the middle of the forest and began to throw the knives at a tree. Joy raced through her body as she knew what she was meant to do with her life.

She went back day after day to practice and felt better than she ever had before. Only one day as she was throwing her knives, she missed the tree. It flew past and injured the wing of a bird.

Kara gasped and ran to the bird and saw she had injured its wing. She scooped up the little bird and ran back to her parent’s house to find her dad sitting in the living room.

With tears in her eyes, she told the story of the knives and the bird while her father worked on the wing.

When he was done, he put the wing in the sling and told his daughter it was her job now to care for the bird and make sure that it had a good life.

Kara agreed, and over the next few weeks, she fed, groomed, and loved the bird with all her heart, and the bird grew stronger.

Her father saw his daughter caring for the bird. He noticed how she tenderly changed its bandages with gentle hands. How sweetly she sang to the baby bird each morning to remind it of the melody of outside air.

The next day when she was giving the baby bird a bath, he grinned. “You are ready.”

“Ready for what?” asked Kara.

I will teach you to throw your knives.

Kara furrowed her brow. How would he teach her how to throw knives? Her father was a docile man who surely didn’t know how to do such a reckless activity! Clearly, they were too dangerous, and she would hurt things if she learned.

Her father explained, “we come from a long lineage of knife throwers. It is in your blood like it is in mine. Knives are sharp which is why we have to learn to use them with care and love. I can teach you how.”

“Why didn’t you teach me sooner! Then nobody would have been hurt!”

“You have to be ready,” was all that left his lips.

Skeptically, Kara agreed.

Life taught her that she could not live without her knives and still shine bright. It also taught her that her greatest gift could also be the strongest weapon.

With the guidance and help of her father, she learned to meditate and accept this piece of herself that she had tried to hide for so long.

Meditation gave her the peace and discipline to learn how to throw knives with precision and care.

She learned to live her passion. She respected the blood knives draw just as much as she loved the art of the craft. Balancing both, she became one of the greatest knife throwers in the world.

Why are we so scared of shining?

Why do we live so much of our life in the shadows?

What external activity reflects our soul?

Why do we spend so much of our life dulled and shrinking?

If you enjoyed this article, take a look at my series, “Adults are Children Too” on Amazon.

--

--