by Kevin Johnson Murillo
Smiles walked into the apartment looking exhausted.
“Where have you been?” screeched Kiki. But he didn’t say anything. He shambled to the table and plopped down onto a chair. He muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?” said Kiki, leaning forward.
“I…”
It sounded like he was about to explain himself but then desisted. Kiki smirked and looked away. Her makeup was a mess. Her bright red, tattered clothes presaged disaster.
“Do you want a smoke?” she said.
He nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. He opened his lips and she slipped a cigarette in place, then lit it for him.
Indefinite fidgeting.
“What are we going to have for supper?” said Kiki to no one.
As he smoked, Smiles revived slightly. He managed to whisper hoarsely, “Isn’t there meat in the fridge?”
Kiki looked at him, then at the fridge, then back at Smiles.
“I don’t know.”
He didn’t respond.
Kiki tentatively got up, walked the two and a half meters from her chair to the pale yellow refrigerator and opened it. Inside, there was a severed bald head on a platter.
“There’s nothing to see here,” she said.
This made Smiles angry. He sputtered, “I don’t care if there’s nothing to see. What we wants to know is whether there’s anything to eat.”
“I can’t say.”
She closed the fridge door and skipped back to her seat. Smiles’ head fell back on his arms. Ashes fell on the table and on the sleeves of his jacket.
Kiki chewed at her nails and eyed the walls nervously as she waited for the skin to melt off his face.
“I think I’m going to go out,” she said.
He didn’t respond.
“Yes, I think I’m going to get out of here. I can’t stand you in here, did you know that?”
There was the slightest tinge of contempt and dissatisfaction in his eyes. She pretended not to notice.
“You’re so God-damn boring, did you know that?” she said.
Smiles’ eyes were naked now. Some ash fell on the table and a small stream of smoke rose from pursed lips.
“It’s disgusting!”
She stood up, grabbed her leather purse and stormed out of the apartment in one swift and violent motion. He didn’t react. The door slammed shut.
The cigarette smoldered between his lips until all that was left of it was the orange filter, which he then chewed on as if it were bubble gum. He didn’t care what she did. He was just happy to be back. Better yet, he was happy not to be back out there, that was all that mattered. Now he could rest, if you can call it that. To not be moving, that was the dream. And that lack of motion, thanks to Kiki’s abandonment of the apartment, was all he could ever want.
But as soon as these thoughts were thought (to the extent that such a haze can be called thinking), the door burst open again and Kiki came in with some brownshirts.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Smiles muttered, but before he could react one of the officers had pushed him to the floor as the other started kicking him in the back of the head. He quickly lost consciousness. The workers then dragged him out of the apartment by his feet. Kiki clapped gleefully through all of this.
What those savages didn’t know was that there was a head of one of their own in that drab apartment. Alone again, Kiki took it out and set it on the stove.
She cut the top of the head off with a circular saw. Its contents had turned to mush which was surprisingly easy to swallow.