b r a n d i    w e l l s
 

Ways to preserve him:

Ways the man might be killed with fruit:




































Ways to preserve him:

Conversation

Plastic Wrap

Tupperware

Aluminum Foil

Really today is a good day and you are beautiful. Please do not say the wrong thing or make the wrong gesture. Don’t say “Nothing” when I ask what’s wrong.

Because isn’t he beautiful? Don’t I love the way his eyebrows arch whenever he’s talking? Don’t I love the little mole beneath his left eye? If he would sit very still while I wrapped his face and body in the plastic wrap.

I saw a television show where a mother put her kids into Tupperware each night so they’d never age. The children were actually 45 year old men, but you’d never know it because of the way the Tupperware preserved them.

Would it be more feasible? More obtainable. No one ever laughed at aluminum foil. But I know no one is laughing. They’re taking me seriously, because I am very serious.

I want over the top romance and I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I want a pornography of words.

But maybe he wouldn’t understand. Maybe he wouldn’t be still. He might struggle and argue. Best to wait until he’s sleeping and wrap him quickly.

I wonder if Tupperware is sound-proof. Could we have conversations through the Tupperware? Could anyone hear his cries for help if he felt the need to emit cries for help?

The best thing about aluminum foil might be the way it crinkles, gets sharp edges. With enough layering the sharp edges would cut into skin. Every time he moved, it would cut.

I hate how sometimes you seem thrilled to see me and other times you look bored.

Best to wait until he’s had a few drinks. Wait until he smells of beer belches, doesn’t say excuse me, doesn’t cover his mouth.

I would need to seal the Tupperware with something that bonds instantly and strongly. I wouldn’t want him tearing the lid off when oxygen gives way to carbon dioxide.

Aluminum foil doesn’t hold heat either. That ought to have some benefit. If a heat can be produced, it can be held.

Listen. Why won’t you listen? And talk? I am trying my best.

Do I wrap the face first? Slow the breathing so it’ll weaken the body?

And I really don’t want to be ridiculous. I’m just trying to cover every possible angle. No plan overlooked.

Wrap him at night, when he’s drunk, same as I planned with the plastic wrap. Do it fast before he’s aware enough to know.

This isn’t working.

Or do I wrap arms to torso, preventing movement. Prevent flailing. Lessen any semblance of a struggle.

I just want to do it right.

Or maybe I could layer the plastic wrap and the aluminum foil. Smothering, cutting paralysis. Beautiful.

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Ways the man might be killed with fruit:

Apples

Peaches

Pineapples

It is not so new, killing someone with an apple. It is not uncommon, not impossible, not unfeasible. And he really likes apples. I have seen the way he savors them. The way he takes the last apple without asking if it’s okay, without offering it to me. Poisoning the apple would be easy. Risk-free. Fun.

A peach has that pit in the center. Easy to choke on a pit. And the way the syrupy juice would run over his lips, over my hands. Beautiful.

They’d hurt more than apples. More than peach pies. The pricks on the hull would rip his face and neck open. Tear the skin on his shoulders. Even his fingers if he tried to shield his face with his hands.

Or maybe a razorblade. Razorblades seem fun too. Folklore-ish. Whimsical. Perhaps not as played out as a poisonous apple.

Maybe take it a step further. Bake the peaches into a pie. Make it smell delicious. Cinnamon, nutmeg, the buttery, flakey crust.

It would smell like pineapple. Tropical and light and summery.

But maybe a razorblade wouldn’t kill him. Would only hurt him. Piss him off. Sure, I’d like to watch his mouth bleed, but that isn’t enough.

But does he like peach pie? I don’t remember. He always says “that’s nice,” if I tell him I’ve made something. Hard to remember if he’s ever eaten a peach pie.

His face and hands and neck would taste like pineapple.

I could throw the apples at him. I would climb up somewhere high and throw them down at him. He’d be shocked, probably too shocked to run away immediately. He’d just stand there while I pelted him with the apples.

Drown him in the peach pie. Push his face down into the pie so he couldn’t breathe. Sniffing and choking. Little pieces of peach and crust getting sucked up into his nasal passages as he breathes harder because of the fear.

I wonder if he would appreciate the thought I had put into it. If he would realize how pineapples were superior to apples and peaches. Would he even consider apples and peaches? He was never very creative. Never imaginative.

Or maybe he would run away. Maybe it would remind him of a snowball fight and he would know to take cover. Maybe the best way would be to choke him with a single apple. Wait until he’s sleep and press the thing against his teeth. Break pieces off that way and cram them down his throat while he struggles and drools and spits.

Or maybe be comical about it. Hit him with pie after pie after pie. Bruised by pie. Welts on his face because of the pie. Laughing at him. He’d laugh at the first pie even though it hurt. But maybe not the 2nd or 3rd or 9th or 47th one. Certainly not the 47th pie.

But I am. I think of every option. Process all of it. Make the best choices. The most beautiful poetic choices.

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BRANDI WELLS is an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama and is the author of Please Don't be Upset, released by Tiny Hardcore Press. Her fiction also appears in Salamander, Mid-American Review, The Way We Sleep, Nano Fiction and other journals.


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