A-Minor

by Josh Denslow

The woman told us that she wanted to cut up her husband into little pieces so she could eat him and carry him around everywhere in her belly.

That’s true love, I said to my wife later as she pounded pork chops for dinner, each thud matching my pulse exactly. Pork chops are my favorite. Though I prefer the ones at the place down the street.

Like how I want to punch you as hard as I can in the face because of how adorable you are, she replied and pulled the curtains closed.

Do you think he’s heard that so many times that he thinks she’ll never do it? I ask my wife after dinner while her nipples push violently through one of my old t-shirts.

That would be a mistake, she said.

My wife wasn’t nearly as shocked as I was when we found out the woman had done it. Or at least tried. She had a difficult time cutting him into small enough pieces for consumption.

I don’t understand, I said as I read the article in the paper which was accompanied by a picture of the woman and her husband in the restaurant where we last saw them. They seemed so happy.

Of course you don’t, she said and cracked her knuckles.

Josh Denslow‘s stories have appeared in Third Coast, Black Clock, Pear Noir!, Cutbank, Wigleaf and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, among others. He is a staff editor at SmokeLong Quarterly and a blog editor at The Lit Pub. He has written and directed five short films, and he plays the drums in the band Borrisokane.