[ WP ] You find an old object of yours in the back of the closet . Tell us about a single memory that slams into your brain when you see the object .

I opened up the old closet in the back of the basement. I looked at the jacket hanging for eternity. The dusty shoes to never be worn again. A fishing rod that would never sense the feeling of fresh water. In the corner was a small wooden box. I picked it up and opened the engraved lock. The shine of metal greeted me. My fingers caressed the blade of a small hunting knife. Made by my father ages ago. The last time I used it was the last day I saw my dad. 
 
 It was the day my father had picked for our reconciliation. Years of alcohol abuse had lost him a wife and a son. He had invited me for a hunting trip in the local wild. 
 
 It was the day my father gave me the blade. One he had made when he was young, for his deerhunting trips with his father. That day on the parking lot he had handed me the small wooden box. He had told me to use it wisely. He told me it had two purposes. The end of the hunt, and the preparation of the animal after. 
 
 It was the day I shot my first deer. It had loped across my sights and stopped to grass in a sunny clearing. Not sensing the danger lurking a mile away. My dad had urged me to pull the trigger. I obeyed, as I always had. It felt wrong. It was a cowards way. But it ran in the blood. The weak was meat. The recoil had shaken a tear from my eye, as I saw the graceful animal fall over. 
 
 It was the day the hunting knife got its first use. My father had urged me over to the clearing. We bent over the deer. It was still breathing. I remembered it looking at me, asking for mercy. My dad had urged me to kill. He instructed me to slide the blade in on the side of larynx, where the main artery was. He had a twinkle in his eyes as I drew the blade. Kill, he urged. I obeyed, as I always had. 
 
 It was the day the knife tasted blood for the first and last time. The blade was still stained by his blood. 
 
 I locked the box, the closet and the memory away for a rainy day.
