No sooner had i read your post, art, than I promptly sliced open my left thumb with a brand-new kitchen knife. There must be an omen here somewhere. In the year of the snake, perhaps, the tools of power which we wield everyday threaten to turn against us. Ordinary activities, such as the slicing of bread, are fraught with peril and loaded with significance. We see a stranger across a mound of khakis at the Gap and feel moved to speak to them; we get into a bus whose electronic route sign has malfunctioned and spells out a nonsense word which we could swear was the name of the sidekick on some terrible Hanna-Barbera cartoon we once saw. Our thumb bleeds and we wonder how serious it is, if this will somehow be a turning point in life. We start using the first person plural. We see visions of sheep munching on a field of grass which is, on closer inspection, revealed to be a pasture covered entirely in miniscule, writhing snakes. Or perhaps visions of snakes digesting placid and unresisting sheep.

Hope that helps. You know, I don't know why we have nothing in this house for a cut but purple band-aids with stars and planets on them, in a box labled "Clear Band-Aids." Maybe that's an omen too.