After the Kids Are Asleep

Author: Omar Taher

"I am here because I knew no other place to hide! After I killed my wife, I fled, running until I hid in a ship I thought was abandoned. The port was busy with a massive fire, so I snuck in and slept, then woke up to a severe, persistent damp pain in my neck. We were at sea, and I learned our destination was Nicaragua from the ship's cook, who sympathized with my story and allowed me to hide in his room. He secretly provided me with food, cigarettes, and liquor, which helped me cauterize the wounds of my soul... I don't know why I killed this woman for whom I fought everyone. My father said, 'She will destroy you,' so I cut him off and ran away with her to her distant city. We reopened her family's old restaurant. She was skilled at cooking fish, and I was skilled at accounting and massaging her legs every evening with lavender oil. The city's men would gather around the tables, flirting with her shiny legs. One of them did it in front of me and said, 'We envy you.' Then I saw him from afar rubbing her arm with his, and it bothered me that she didn't get angry. I told her, 'Let's leave the city.' She said, with a malicious look on her face for the first time, 'It's not a solution, the city will always haunt you.' That night I didn't sleep until I poured boiling oil over her legs. The shock was fatal!"