The Best Defense Is a Good Offense

Harold lay in bed, the wheels in his head slowly turning. When an idea came to him, he couldn’t dismiss it. Tonight, at approximately 10:00 P.M., he had a potentially lifesaving realization that came screaming through to his consciousness: Lily was trying to kill him.

Lily, his new arch nemesis, was the attractive brunette lying in bed next to him. He and Lily had dated in college, and two years later, she moved into his apartment. Now, after three weeks of cohabitant bliss, his feelings of love and security had come to an abrupt end. Earlier in the evening, he was getting ready for bed when he mentioned to Lily that he had a headache. She went to the kitchen for a glass of water and returned as Harold was slipping into bed. She ran her fingers through his dark hair and said “Here. Take these pills. Hopefully you’ll feel better.” He looked down at the pills. “Bayer,” they read. It was aspirin! He was allergic to aspirin. Just what was she trying to do? He eyed her suspiciously as she walked toward the bathroom. Once she was safely out of view, he stuffed the pills under the mattress and pretended to fall asleep.

Now, as he lay awake, all the evidence started to piece together. Just last week he’d had a doctor’s appointment. The doctor told him that his cholesterol level was too high. Considering his family history of heart attacks, he was supposed to lay off the fat and cholesterol for a while. But what had Lily done? She made him scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage for breakfast! For lunch she prepared lobster salad on a tasty croissant. For dinner she grilled a juicy sirloin steak and whipped up buttery mashed potatoes on the side. The treachery of it all left him in a cold terror. How could she be so heartless and calculating? His mind continued to race. He recalled that she had invited him to attend church services with her on Sunday mornings. Why would she do that, unless she was trying to prepare him for something? Something like, say, his untimely death. Harold stewed over all this information, trying to rationalize, trying to find answers. Ultimately, there was only one thing he could do: he must kill her first.

The next morning, Lily woke up with a smile. It was Saturday, which meant she got to spend the day volunteering at the hospital. She worked in the obstetrics wing. Most of her time was spent either rocking babies to sleep or taking floral bouquets to the new mothers. The experiences she’d had there made her appreciate the tenderness of new life.

Lily’s mind was occupied by warm thoughts of babies as she went to the kitchen to fix breakfast. “Perhaps someday Harold and I will have our own children,” she thought with some longing.

She was slicing oranges in half, getting ready to squeeze fresh orange juice, when she glanced down the hallway in the direction of the bedroom. She was surprised to see Harold, still in his underwear, peeping around the door, staring at her. When she saw him, he ducked back into the room, out of sight.

“You know, he’s been acting a little odd lately,” she thought. She recalled how last week he had declared the cricket in their apartment Ambassador of the Sudan, and how, on occasion, he would head-butt loaves of bread at the grocery store.

“Poor guy must be under a lot of stress at work,” she decided. “Maybe if I make him his favorite breakfast he’ll feel better.”

She set to work on making a Southwestern-style omelet with cinnamon toast on the side to go with the glass of orange juice. When she finished, she went back to the bedroom to get dressed in her hospital uniform. In the bedroom, she saw Harold standing by the door.

“Oh good morning, hon,” she said. “Breakfast is on the table for you.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the forehead. Harold endured the gesture while clenching his fists. “The kiss of death,” he thought gravely

After Lily was safely on her way to the hospital, Harold crept out to the kitchen. He spied the food on the table. “An omelet!” he observed with growing alarm. "It’s like she’s not even trying to hide her intentions anymore." He nibbled on the cinnamon toast and drank the orange juice. The omelet and its 650 mg of cholesterol were fed to the garbage disposal.

Harold was now fully aware of the seriousness of his situation. Quick action was the only plausible route. The question was, how could he possibly outwit her and lure her to her death? He quickly flipped through the encyclopedia of murder mysteries and conspiracy theories that existed in his brain. Eventually, a clear choice came to him. He would poison her. It was simple. It was classy. Unfortunately, it was also cliché. Lily was not someone who would fall for the old arsenic-in-the-glass-of-wine trick. He would have to do better than that.

The answer came to him that afternoon while standing in the automotive section of Wal-Mart. He had been searching through the different antifreezes when he happened upon a large glass bottle filled with a clear liquid. “Methyl alcohol,” the label read. As he continued reading the label, his interest grew.

Warning! Contact with or ingestion of this chemical can lead to skin irritation, headache, nausea, vision failure, difficulty breathing, and death. Keep out of reach of children.

Harold could hardly believe his luck. It was perfect! Poetic, even. She would be nauseated, just as the thought of her nauseated him. She would experience vision failure, as he had failed to see just what kind of morbid Angel of Death she really was.

Harold took the bottle and opened the lid. He sniffed it briefly and noticed there was a mild alcoholic odor to it. He knew this could potentially be his downfall. Lily would certainly notice the smell if he mixed it in her milk or injected it into her catfish filet. But, she wouldn’t notice it if it were mixed in with something that had its own mild alcoholic odor. Something, for example, like red wine. Harold eagerly paid for the bottle and drove home.

That night, when Lily returned home from the hospital, Harold had dinner waiting on the table. “This is so sweet of him,” she thought. “He must have really appreciated the breakfast I made him.” The two of them sat down at the table and began to eat the dinner he had prepared: garden salad, crescent rolls, catfish filets, . . . and a glass of red wine on the side. Tiny beads of sweat appeared on Harold’s forehead as he nervously watched her eat the food. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she reached for the glass of wine. She lifted it to her nose, sniffed it, and paused. Harold held his breath in anticipation. Just as he began envisioning Lily slamming the glass down and using a broken shard to slice his throat, she started drinking. She drank and drank until the glass was empty. “Success!” his inner monologue proclaimed. Harold sat back in triumph and waited for the parade of symptoms to begin. In a matter of seconds, she would experience skin irritation, headache, nausea, vision failure, difficulty breathing, and finally, precious death.

But the seconds and minutes passed, and Lily kept eating her meal with that same infuriating, pleasant look on her face. Harold, who had long since forgotten about his own food, continued staring at Lily in disbelief. Finally, Lily looked up at him and asked, “Is everything okay, Harold?” His thoughts were racing as he searched for answers but found none. “Yeah, uh, I’m fine,” he answered. “I think I’ll just go to the kitchen and check on the dessert.”

He got up and walked hastily into the kitchen. There, on top of the stove, was the industrial-sized bottle of methyl alcohol. He read and reread the label. “Ingestion of this chemical can lead to skin irritation, headache, nausea, vision failure, difficulty breathing, and death.” Harold stood in utter confusion, his mind blank. Then he read further down the label:

In case of accidental ingestion of this chemical, consume large quantities of ethyl alcohol and contact a physician.

Ethyl alcohol. Regular, drinkable ethyl alcohol. The same type of alcohol found, for example, in red wine. Blood rushed to Harold’s face as he realized his mistake. Anger and frustration began to overcome him. Then he read even further down the label:

Contents are extremely flammable and explosive. Store in a cool, dry place and avoid contact with hot surfaces or open flame.

Shock ran down his spine as he realized he had left the bottle on the stovetop while simultaneously noticing that he had left the oven on. In a panic, he picked up the bottle to move it off the oven. However, the glass was already so hot that it burned Harold’s fingers. Instinctively, he let go of the bottle and watched helplessly as it shattered on the oven. Hot methyl alcohol rushed across the surface and drained between the spaces in the burners. Harold had approximately enough time to think “Uh-oh” before the explosion ripped through the kitchen, leaving it a chaotic mess of fire and fumes. Harold lay on the linoleum floor, flattened by the blow. In his final seconds of consciousness he made the grave realization that his ultimate opponent proved not to be Lily, but rather his own oven. And yet he was able to take comfort in the fact that while the oven may have killed him, he had equally killed the oven, and that surely history would look upon their battle as having been a draw.

Benjamin Killey

MS II

First Place, Prose