The Lovely Assistant
The Lovely Assistant's job is to stand still while her husband, who is cheating on her, throws knives at her.
I love the knife-throwing metaphor here; it creates a brutal mental image for the reader, and has a very visceral effect. The lovely assistant is a terrible job but an easy one; this piece addresses gender roles and the difficult places that women are often forced into, and how thin the lines between love and hate can truly be.
With her knife thrower and lovely assistant, Sona probes deeply into the psychology of the contemporary heterosexual couple. America is a circus, everything comes down to timing, and the show must go on.
This is what it is like. To be a carny, to wonder what and when and in which way the knife thrower will miss. The mundane concerns mix perfectly with life-shaking possibilities, all under the glare of the one eyed knife thrower. F*ckin-A Sona, take it easy on me.
