Fox lifted up the knife and pressed it against the stick of butter. It was still cold so he placed his index finger on the top of the blade to give it extra stability and to apply force evenly as the knife cut through it. The blade hit the bottom of the plastic container he stored the butter in, signifying his task of slicing off a piece was complete.

He regarded the cut for a moment, it was thin and cracked in the middle, light serration lines ran through it. He wondered why anyone would bother trying to serrate a blade so dull, and if it actually had any impact on how easily the knife cut. He twisted the knife so the bottom rose to be level with the top of the knife. The slice of butter rested on top of the now horizontal blade. Fox moved the blade to his right and let it hover of the dried and burned piece of bread for a moment. He then turned over the blade, the butter stuck fast defying gravity, lowered it, pressed the blade and butter against the hot toast and began to spread it.

The butter didn't spread well at first because it was cod, but as fox continued to move it over the hot toast it began to melt and sop into the bread. The blade made a sound somewhere between rasping and grating as he tried to evenly apply the thin layer of butter. Finally satisfied the butter had been applied evenly enough fox put down the knife and picked up the piece of toast. He moved the dried out bread towards his mouth and then stopped.

He'd left it in the toaster longer than he had meant to and it came out darker than he liked. Perhaps, he thought, he should put on a little more butter, it would cut the bitterness of the almost blacked bit of bread. Almost as soon as he thought that he heard Krystal's shrill voice in his head telling him how he need to watch his fat and cholesterol intake, how his last test results had come back bad and if he wanted to live past 50 he'd better start watching what he eats.

Fox sighed in resignation, and with a resounding crunch took a bite out of the toast. It was indeed bitter, he could barely taste the paltry amount of butter he'd applied. He, however, continued to munch on it un-contentedly, all the while wish he'd watched the color of the bread closer while it had been toasting.