A Novice Killer

I killed my wife last night.

I did it because she was cheating on me. Ok, so I didn’t have any tangible proof, but every time she came home I could smell the cologne of other men on her. Try putting yourself in my shoes, slogging through the door after a hard day’s work, and giving your wife a kiss only to inhale the scent of another man on her clothes. I mean, so what if she worked in the cologne department at Macy’s? That’s not an excuse! She was cheating on me, I tell you! And I had enough of it! Nobody cheats on Phineas P. Woldsworth! That’s not my name, but nobody cheats on me either! The point is, the bitch had to die.



I’ve never murdered a person before. I guess I always pictured it would go more smoothly. In the movies when someone gets their throat slashed they bleed a little then usually die a neat, instantaneous death. Quick and clean—that’s how it was supposed to be. I snuck up behind her after she had fallen asleep on the couch watching Real Housewives of Timbuktu (or some other vapid reality show) then opened up her throat with a kitchen knife—she gushed like a geyser. You should have seen it! I didn’t know a person’s body could hold so much blood! I’m not ashamed to admit, I got a little lightheaded from the sight.

Well, it certainly wasn’t a neat kill… and it wasn’t a quick one either, for that matter. My wife fell to the floor after I sliced into her neck and began to wildly thrash her arms and legs. I’m sure she would have been screaming too if I hadn’t done a number on her vocal chords. It took about a dozen more stabs to her windpipe before she finally stopped moving. I was kind of disappointed when I realized that the knife I used was a wedding present from my late Aunt Carla. She was my favorite Auntie and that damn thing held a lot of sentimental value to me, but now I had to get rid of it. There was no way I was going to keep the murder weapon in my house! That would be crazy!

Once I was sure my wife was finally dead, I looked around the house to survey the damage. Both our bodies and half the living room were completely coated in blood. I dragged her into my bathroom and dumped her body in the tub. The mess took hours to clean up, but I think I did a bang-up of a job. I got that living room looking like something you’d see Martha Stewart bedazzling throw pillows in. All I have to say is, thank goodness for hardwood floors! It would have been a hell of a lot harder if we had laid down carpeting like my wife insisted when we first moved in. I patted myself on the back for putting my foot down and nixing that idea.

After I was done cleaning, I went back inside the bathroom and tried to figure out what to do with her cadaver. I always do my best thinking on the can so I popped a squat next to her and began to make a number two. What? I didn’t think she was going to mind?

I was just beginning to breech when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. Her stomach had begun moving—heaving up and down at an alarming rate. It startled me so much I nearly fell off the pot. Was she breathing? I felt a wave of guilt begin to wash over me. How selfish of me not to turn on the vent! A second wave smacked me in the face, but this time it was fear.

How could she be alive? I thought to myself. She must have spilled enough blood to fill a dumpster!

I tried to reassure myself that it wasn’t what it looked like. I remembered once reading in a magazine that gas can escape a body, sometimes hours after death. This can give the appearance of breathing, but does not actually mean that the body is doing so.

Just as my heartbeat was beginning to return to its regular cadence I could have sworn I saw her fingers twitch. The sight made me want to get up and sprint as far away from the house as possible—turtle head poking out of my crack and all! A scene from an old television show jogged my memory, allowing me to collect myself. In it, a crime scene investigator explained to a plucky young police officer that even though a person’s brain may be dead, their body’s muscles can still twitch for a little while after they pass.

See? I thought to myself as I pushed a little harder, trying to coax the chocolate bunny from its hole. There is always a logical conclusion for these types of things.

Sometimes things can't be explained though. I realized that when my wife turned her partially detached neck towards me and opened her eyes. The look of rage on her face made me want to scream, but I was too terrified to make a peep. She opened her mouth and I’ll never forget the sound of her gurgling voice as it reverberated off the bathroom walls.

“LIGHT A MATCH!”

PLOP.

Vincent Vena Cava