I think a lot these days about how this monster in front of me—the one eating my food, pounding the table and begging for more wine— is not the enemy I had thought before.

“Say something.”
“No.”
“Alright.”

I throw three eggs in the frying pan to cook with bacon, the sizzle and the scent mixing between my ears and my nose, producing a nausea that ends at my forehead, a pain that is unlikely to disappear soon. It is impossible to avoid seeing that faint expression on the monster’s face, one of relief and consolation, an almost unavoidable smile upon hearing the ingredients submerge into oil. I serve the meal with just a single bread roll even though I know in advance that this will result in a painful thrashing. Carefully cursing under my breath I offer my own roll as well and, finally, we sit down to dinner in peace.

I’m tempted to ask again, but the monster does not tolerate interruptions while eating, and before any words can leave my mouth it grabs some peanuts lying on the counter nearby and safeguards them jealously on the floor. I scratch my fork noiselessly against the empty plate, biding the time. A horrible chortle escapes from the monster’s mouth.

“Say something.”
“No.”
“Alright.”

I’m not certain when I first discovered that this monster, this creature who consumes my house at will, is the only one capable of helping me. With regard to everything I desire to know, the secrets guarded in that insatiable belly, the monster never permits me to speak. Our relationship remains strained. It has never been easy to find common ground with this monster. In any case, the creature demands very little—only food—and when it is finally satiated, the monster promises to reveal the reason why Janice left me.

We eat a copious platter of almonds.

The monster knows so much more than it cares to tell me. Not that long ago, but for a considerable length of time well before she ever met me, the monster had lived with my wife. What it learned while it was with her isn’t at all clear, but I know for certain that it dwelled inside her heart, deep within, in such a manner that only when Janice left me did I have to face the monster. I arrived here that night all soaked with rain after an exhausting day at the police station. The love of my life had fled, locking everything inside the bedroom, including the bed where we would make love, even the message pad where she could have written me one last note. Instead she left only the food in the kitchen, and her monster.

I did not want to allow the creature to stay; I longed for that well-deserved solitude of an abandoned husband, but—and this remains obvious—misfortune never comes alone. Soon the monster threw me against the wall, locked the front door, and sat itself down in the kitchen. Hardly do I remember what unfolded next, but when I recovered once more it was hanging above me, smoking a cigarette, and demanding that I give it food. It has been the same ever since.

Every woman has a monster. This fact won’t surprise anyone, although I for one never wanted to admit the truth until my own wife abandoned me. And the fact that she left me her monster to take care of is not so strange either. Whether it is a token of love or a sinister memento, certainly Janice never intended to leave me completely alone. In spite of her, I take meticulous care of the monster. This is merely a question of fidelity: in marriage just as in my police work I have always strived to afford a certain loyalty to others. That includes my wife and, by extension, her creature. It is curious that in this we are speaking of a quality that Janice never demonstrated towards me or her monster.

I don’t like the monster; that should be obvious. At times it reigns as an insufferable tyrant, it beats me down mercilessly; it humiliates me. And despite the one-sidedness of our relationship, it is the monster who shows the greater scorn between us. It treats me with contempt and complete disdain, acting out with total malice, attributing the hunger it feels inside with the faults it witnesses in me. It is the monster that is dissatisfied, that never ceases to act intolerably annoyed. The monster complains, it shouts, it throws me to the floor. All this I manage to sustain in silence, of course, but what really hurts is all that which I am unable to defend against: the accusatory glare of the monster, the snickering, the raised eyebrows, and even worse the way in which it hardly suffers my justifications. Inexplicably, those moments when the monster ignores me completely are the ones that injure most.

“Say something.”
“No.”
“Alright.”

The situation is rather different than how I imagined it would be before I married. At that time I thought I would have a woman who would take care of me. I would arrive home to a kiss, a casserole, and a cold beer. Together we would spend our nights out, dressed up for the town, and enjoy one another happily. I don’t know, maybe I’m simply a romantic. But instead of this ideal, and no matter how hard she tried, my wife was an altogether different creature. Janice didn’t have the faintest idea how to handle the housework. Moreover, she was lazy: she spent hours in front of the television, she gossiped with the neighbors, made costly long-distance phone calls to her mother. She would go outdoors only to smoke cigarettes. Indolence is not attractive, it even makes ugly, so much so that Janice lost much of the beauty that she had before the wedding. Her eyes blackened, the loose skin around her neck extended. Over time discoloring marks stained her once smooth face, her chin slackened, and her mouth spread thin. And she ate. Janice ate without stop.

No doubt it was from her that the monster learned to eat.

I comfort myself now in believing that these days I haven’t the energy to think anymore of my lost love. No sooner do I arrive in the kitchen than the monster lashes out at me and beats me without restraint. Then, without even a word, it breaks its way into the bedroom where Janice and I once used to sleep together and locks the door behind. Not that I mind, of course. I would rather sleep alone on the sofa than share a bed with a monster. It suits me well, as my dreams are those of an abandoned husband, solitary, like a captured prisoner. I have no designs to escape this situation—some time ago I gave up all possibility of that. I think now only in how best to appease the monster.

The situation down at the station doesn’t help either. While I haven’t much luck engaging in conversation at home, I find myself abnormally muted at work too. It’s not because I have nothing to say, but rather because I am afraid that anything I do say risks making the situation worse. The monster has begun the habit of phoning me four, five times a day. The calls are not about anything important really; it only cries and shouts in a language completely incomprehensible to me. The other officers laugh at this, calling my repeated caller the “police dog.” These jibes are not easy to accept. After all, whether I agree with them or not, it’s my monster that they’re laughing at.

I arrive to work late, I leave early, all so that the monster doesn’t remain alone too long. It eats so much, it has a hunger like nothing imaginable, and worse yet it is hardly capable of taking care of itself. After work I must attend to the shopping while the monster stays home in the bedroom, smoking. It doesn’t plan to leave, doesn’t stop eating. It consumes everything I am able to bring home, and when I arrive late, or if by chance I forget one of the ingredients for dinner, it shouts and shouts to the point of tears. And me? I cry and cry to the point of shouting.

For this reason alone, when Janice’s mother came to the house the other day I should have been relieved. At first I attempted to explain to her that my wife—her daughter—had gone. Having never before taken any consideration of my words, however, my mother-in-law paid little attention. Instead she pushed me aside—she is a woman of ample dimensions—and went directly to the bedroom where the monster had closeted itself. I retreated back, imagining a horrible scene in which my mother-in-law would be eaten by that insatiable creature waiting on the other side of the door. After a few minutes of indistinct whispers all sound ceased. Total silence. I could hear nothing more coming from the room, not the shouts of the monster, nor even the disdainful voice of my mother-in-law.

For better or for worse, my vision did not come to pass though. It seems the monster and Janice’s mother got along just fine. The old woman exited the room softly and came directly to the kitchen where I was already preparing dinner for the three of us. In her dissatisfied expression I could see that same anger and implacable disappointment that my wife had inherited, a look of total condemnation before I had even the slightest chance to defend myself.

She sat down in a chair and asked for some almond cake that was barely visible in a breadbox on the counter. I served her three slices, all that was left of the cake, on a large plate and put a fork beside. Her fingernails extended, she captured the cake in her hands and consumed it ravenously.

The look in her eye was obvious, it told everything. Janice’s mother had made common cause with the monster. On each point she sided with it, defending every indignity the monster compelled of me, treating the creature as if it were her own daughter. I couldn’t allow this to continue. I shouted, I pounded the table, I reacted like a monster too. What else would you have me do? Couldn’t this old woman differentiate between the daughter that had gone and the monster that had taken her place? Janice’s mother was confused. Not me.

Shaking her head with unbridled contempt, she refused to say another word, ignoring all my spent explanations. Nothing was left but crumbs.

“Say something.”
“No.”
“Alright.”

We speak little these days, the monster and I. We never leave the house, only for me to work or to buy food for our dinners. My mother-in-law will not visit again. The elegant dresses and suits remain in the closet consigned now to distant and unreliable memories. It has been some time since the telephone rang with invitations from friends. The neighbors, unmannerly all of them, whisper rudely among themselves that I live with a monster. Not even the truth should be so brutal.

Life continues in its inflexible way. We eat, my monster and I, and it throws me to the floor. Yet we continue, we survive one another, knowing that to live with a monster is better than to remain alone. Our dinners are mute, the silence broken only by the infernal chewing as I gaze hopelessly at this creature swallowing my food. It pays me no attention. I continue to wish desperately for my wife to return to me, to converse with me—that beautiful young woman I married only one year ago. Where has she gone? Say something!

“No.”
“Alright.”