by Kevin Johnson Murillo<\/p>\n
Smiles walked into the apartment looking exhausted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere have you been?\u201d screeched Kiki. But he didn\u2019t say anything. He shambled to the table and plopped down onto a chair. He muttered something under his breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was that?\u201d said Kiki, leaning forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want a smoke?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
He nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. He opened his lips and she slipped a cigarette in place, then lit it for him.<\/p>\n
Indefinite fidgeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are we going to have for supper?\u201d said Kiki to no one.<\/p>\n
As he smoked, Smiles revived slightly. He managed to whisper hoarsely, \u201cIsn\u2019t there meat in the fridge?\u201d<\/p>\n
Kiki looked at him, then at the fridge, then back at Smiles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing to see here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This made Smiles angry. He sputtered, \u201cI don\u2019t care if there\u2019s nothing to see. What we wants<\/em> to know is whether there\u2019s anything to eat<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n She closed the fridge door and skipped back to her seat. Smiles\u2019 head fell back on his arms. Ashes fell on the table and on the sleeves of his jacket.<\/p>\n Kiki chewed at her nails and eyed the walls nervously as she waited for the skin to melt off his face.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m going to go out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I think I\u2019m going to get out of here. I can\u2019t stand you in here, did you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n There was the slightest tinge of contempt and dissatisfaction in his eyes. She pretended not to notice.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re so God-damn boring, did you know that?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Smiles\u2019 eyes were naked now. Some ash fell on the table and a small stream of smoke rose from pursed lips.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s disgus<\/em>ting!\u201d<\/p>\n She stood up, grabbed her leather purse and stormed out of the apartment in one swift and violent motion. He didn\u2019t react. The door slammed shut.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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\u2019s abandonment of the apartment, was all he could ever want.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the meaning of this?\u201d 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.<\/p>\n What those savages didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n She cut the top of the head off with a circular saw. Its contents had turned to mush which was surprisingly easy to swallow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Kevin Johnson Murillo Smiles walked into the apartment looking exhausted. \u201cWhere have you been?\u201d screeched Kiki. But he didn\u2019t say anything. He shambled to the table and plopped down onto a chair. He muttered something under his breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1822,77],"tags":[1821,1123,1652],"class_list":["post-16048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-87","category-english","tag-egophobia-87","tag-english","tag-kevin-johnson-murillo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-4aQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16049,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16048\/revisions\/16049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}