Cold War

He sits across the table, the morning paper covering his face, because he doesn't want you to gawk at the kiss mark on his neck. When he puts down the paper to sip his coffee, he smiles sweetly at you, wincing a little because the coffee tastes strangely salty.

"I must have switched the labels again," he says in a matter-of-fact tone, then ladles in heaps of sugar from the salt container, and then he downs everything in one gulp. The beast.

"You look better with more hair, sweetheart," you say, stifling a mischievous smirk because it was also you who mixed hair removal cream with his shampoo.

"It's not that bad. I spend less time grooming up every morning, since I shaved my head," he says, laughing a little. You had to secretly agree yourself that he does still look dashing even without "more hair."

You try to bore holes on his face with your steady stare, this man who seems aware but impossibly impervious to all your acts of revenge, who takes everything lightly. You struggle to loosen your grip on the bread knife.

He finishes his breakfast and gets up to leave. He plants a small kiss on your cheek, tells you he will be home late because of a meeting. You don't move from your chair to see him to the door.

You wait for him to shout a barrage of curses once he gets to his car. Last night, you smeared egg yolks across his car's windshield.

A couple of minutes passed, and you still could not hear him cursing loudly through the garage. Five minutes passed. Seven minutes. Impatient now and worried that everything may not be going according to plan, you get up from your chair. You go to the window and peek from behind an opening in the curtains.

Finally, you see him hunched over his car's now freshly cleaned windshield, wiping it dry with a washcloth. You could faintly hear him whistling the catchy tune of a popular novelty song.

Fucking motherfucker of an asshole.