I didn’t explode when I struck. My time would come later.

It was 1958. Hundreds of thousands of us fell upon the island of Quemoy. The reasons didn’t matter to me. All that mattered was the long, cold barrel, the instant of ignition, the ponderous arc across the Taiwan Strait, and the fall. From a Soviet factory to now, my destiny was to kill.

I didn’t explode when I struck. My time would come later.

I waited. Rain and wind piled mud over me. Cold, heat, night, day passed again and again.  Then, the claw of a steam shovel, and I saw the sun again.

There was a flatbed truck, and crates, and thousands of my brothers stacked on top of one another.  We clattered as the truck bounced along the muddy roads of Kinmen. Our war was over. My time would come later.

There was a bespectacled man, gentle, with a hammer and a practiced arm. I melted in his forge. I folded under his hammer, under his patience. I became thin, hard, and gained an edge that would split a hair. My balance lay at my handle. I was exquisite. I remember the Maestro’s smile as he turned me toward the light.

My time was close.

Other hands polished me until I shone. I was gently placed in red velvet, and wrapped in a box. There was darkness again, and I waited.

There was laughing, after a time. The next light was brilliantly colored, and the tinkling of wine glasses echoed throughout the room. There was music. A woman in white and a man in black both gasped and made much of me as an older man told my story.

“There’s a guy in Taiwan makes those outta bomb casings,” he slurred, gesturing with his wine glass. “Picked it up on my last trip to Hong Kong. Hope you kids like it.”

An older woman punched him in the arm. “Don’t you know that it's bad luck to give a knife as a wedding present?” she said.

There was more laughter, and I was shoved back into the box. More darkness.

Eventually, I slid into a wooden block. There were others nearby, with names like Calphalon and KitchenAid, all made to cut carrots and scale fish.

I was made to kill. My time was close.

I did cut carrots. I scaled a few fish. There was yelling when she caught him using me as a screwdriver, once.

I chopped an onion too fast when he had come home late, and after she had emptied most of a bottle of wine.

Then she was gone for a few days. Business trip to Dallas.

On the first night she was gone, he used me to cut up a stack of frozen waffles. On the second night, I split a chicken before he lit up the barbecue for some friends.

On the third night, she came home early. She found him on the couch with Heather from work. I was in the sink, greasy with barbecue sauce. I was the first thing she grabbed.

My time had come. My destiny fulfilled.

I never saw another onion.