Prompted: Switchblade

In books, they used antique straight-razors. Not plausible, as straight razors were quite difficult to acquire these days. In movies, they used slightly more hip blades; Swiss Amy Knives, switchblades, very 'street' things. She'd heard of people using serrated dinner knives, laying into their own flesh like a tenderloin steak. In her mind, a sharpened nail file had seemed a likely option. She knew where the knife sharpener was, after all.

In real life, she used broken glass.

Not the most reusable ploy, certainly, but it had a certain degree of plausible deniability that she couldn't resist. The first glass didn't break, of course. People in movies and books never spent five minutes hurling a Coke glass at the floor to get something sharp, but the cup was quite sturdy. They don't make 'em like they used to.

The utter ridiculousness of the scene gave her a slightly lightheaded feeling, coupled with rising hysteria. The second glass shattered on the linoleum, though, and it was with almost dreamlike calm and satisfaction that she sat with her back to the stove and its decorative seasonal towels and began to slice into her left hand.

The left hand, however, offered precious little room, and thirty-eight red lines soon stood upon it. Annoyed, she let the shard fall and watched a red drop make its way down her fingers and drip onto the floor tile, then looked at the clock. Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes for thirty-eight red lines and countless shards of broken glass.