by Salvatore DIFALCO

The drunk­en man came home with his head sep­a­rat­ed, as it were, from his body. Wild-eyed and froth­ing at the mouth, the head shout­ed as it hov­ered above the kitchen ta­ble. The body, mean­while, suit­ed in black wool and vom­it-soiled on the left shoul­der, buck­led and swayed around the kitchen. His right hand un­but­toned his jack­et, pulling off sev­er­al but­tons in the process, which clicked to the floor and scat­tered across the tiles. His left hand reached for a ser­rat­ed knife from the knife block and waved it around. His head shout­ed at the lit­tle wife, who was hug­ging a broom in the corner.

“What have you pre­pared for dinner!”

“Chick­en,” said the wife, “and fish, as you requested.”

The head ver­i­ta­bly spun around, spew­ing curs­es and spitting.

“Chick­en and fish!” it cried. “Are you mad! Are you a mad­woman? Who eats chick­en and fish to­geth­er? Not I. Not I. Not I!”

“But you said …”

“I said? I said!”

The head squeezed its eyes shut and belched and would like­ly have vom­it­ed had it still been at­tached to the body. The body, on its own mis­sion, stag­gered about, bump­ing in­to the kitchen is­land and knock­ing over the wood­en but­ter churn. Luck­i­ly the wife had emp­tied it earlier.

The head want­ed to drink from the un­corked wine bot­tle on the ta­ble and even tried to hov­er close to it and fit its lips around the open­ing with no success.

“Help me!” it cried. “Help me with this! I need to drink!”

Still clutch­ing the broom han­dle, the wife stepped out of the cor­ner and walked over to the ta­ble. She grasped the bot­tle and lift­ed it to the hov­er­ing head. She tried to tip some wine in­to the gap­ing mouth, but the head did not hold steady and the wine spilled to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done!” cried the head. “You’re use­less! You’re a use­less woman!”

Long ac­cli­mat­ed to such ver­bal abuse, the wife set the bot­tle back on the ta­ble. The chick­en she had roast­ed and the fish she had poached grew cold on their plates. The head had scarce­ly glanced at the plates. All it could do was com­plain about her cook­ing the fish in ad­di­tion to the chick­en. But her hus­band had re­quest­ed the two and had in­sist­ed on no veg­eta­bles or pota­toes or rice.

The body slumped down against the pantry with one knee up and a fore­arm rest­ing across it. A foul smell rose from it. The wife sus­pect­ed it had soiled it­self. This had hap­pened on more than one oc­ca­sion. And she had been forced to clean it up. Of course she did so with­out com­plaint, for she was a good wife, loved her hus­band, cared about him, and want­ed the best for him. But she did­n’t think she would do any­thing of the sort on this evening.

“What kind of chick­en is this?” cried the hov­er­ing head.

She did not an­swer that question.

“The fish smells foul,” the head said. “It all smells foul. You’re ter­ri­ble. You’re a ter­ri­ble cook.”

The wife stepped clos­er to the head, still hold­ing the broomstick.

“That chick­en,” said the head, “that chick­en looks like the ma­joli­ca chick­en your moth­er gave us for a wed­ding gift. Re­mem­ber that hideous thing? It was ter­ri­ble. Your moth­er’s terrible.”

The wife had all but for­got­ten about the ma­joli­ca chick­en, a red-and-brown ob­ject of ex­quis­ite beau­ty from Italy that her hus­band had de­stroyed with a drop­kick one evening af­ter a par­tic­u­lar­ly ex­ces­sive and vi­o­lent drink­ing binge.

“Fix me some­thing else,” the head de­mand­ed, hov­er­ing near her head. “Fix me some pas­ta. Yes, some pas­ta with sar­dines. I want pas­ta with sardines.”

“Okay,” said the wife, avert­ing her face as her hus­band’s head smelled like mag­goty ca­su marzu. “Some pas­ta with sardines.”

As the head hov­ered with lid­ded eyes, the lit­tle wife lift­ed the broom­stick and pulled it back over her shoul­der. Then she torqued her hips and swung the broom­stick around at her hus­band’s head, wal­lop­ing it out of the air with a dull thunk. It flew across the kitchen and struck the stovepipe be­fore falling on the stove­top with its eyes shut. It made no fur­ther sound.

With her things al­ready packed in her port­man­teau, the lit­tle wife put on a smart blue jack­et and some red high heels she had re­cent­ly pur­chased in the vil­lage. Now she did some­thing cu­ri­ous. She grabbed the fish she had poached for her hus­band, walked over to the head rest­ing on the stove­top, and stuffed it in­to the mouth, headfirst.

“En­joy,” she said.

Filed under Fiction on October 9th, 2026

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by Salvatore DIFALCO

This morn­ing my eyes sit at the bot­tom of my face and my parched mouth gapes where my fore­head should be. I slept in my best suit of clothes and now it is sev­er­al shades of blue for some rea­son. I glance at my re­flec­tion in the kitchen win­dow and I see a lot of green. I open the win­dow and let the cool air ca­ress my hot, cu­bist face. It is not green out­side. It is dun and brown and dirty. So what is this green? My cat bumps my leg and purrs. I look down and she is al­so green this morn­ing, with emer­ald eyes. Why is she green? I try to reach her head but my hand feels in­flat­ed. I look at it. Madon­na mia. The green tinge con­cerns me as much as the swelling. The cat bumps me again. “Not now, amore. Not now. Pa­pa is dying.”

Am I dy­ing? Every­one is dy­ing. Not every­one is dy­ing this morn­ing. I try to stand up but this caus­es my stom­ach con­tents to rise. I sit down again and take deep breaths. Should I hate my cousin Bruno for in­tro­duc­ing me to and then del­ug­ing me with his ter­ri­ble wine? He said he made it with his fa­ther, my Un­cle Sil­vio, who knows from wine, but I sus­pect he crushed the grapes with his own foetid feet and fer­ment­ed them in dirty bar­rels with­out his fa­ther’s su­per­vi­sion. I will nev­er drink wine again. And I will hunt Bruno down when I am able and in­flict a prop­er beat­ing on him. A red bird of some va­ri­ety lights on the win­dowsill. A drop of red in a bar­ren land­scape al­ways pleas­es the eye. But on this oc­ca­sion, the red sends me rush­ing to the jakes to emp­ty my­self of all my in­testi­nal dev­ils past, present, and to come.

When I emerge the green cat awaits and I stag­ger to the clay jar where I keep her vit­tles and grab some with my swollen hand. I drop the food on the floor and she growls as she wolfs it down. “Good girl,” I say. I have yet to name her. Maybe I will call her Green, the green cat. It makes per­fect sense. She has been hang­ing around my abode for sev­er­al weeks and I have been feed­ing her lamb jerky, which she seems to like. Per­haps I should en­deav­or to di­ver­si­fy her di­et, but I know noth­ing of cats. I as­sume she dis­patch­es the oc­ca­sion­al ro­dent or lizard creep­ing about the house.

I drink a jug of wa­ter scarce­ly draw­ing a breath, but this dri­ves me back to the jakes for more purg­ing. Bruno will die, mark my words. That will con­sti­tute a par­ri­cide, or more prop­er­ly speak­ing a pa­tru­eli­cide, the killing of a pa­ter­nal cousin. Fun­ny there is a word for that. Our fa­thers were broth­ers. Both dead from heart ail­ments. Bruno will not die of a heart ail­ment. He will die of poi­son­ing or stab­bing. Will I re­al­ly kill my cousin? “Green,” I say, “should I kill my cousin, Bruno?” The cat looks at me with her slit­ted, mur­der­ous emer­ald eyes, seem­ing to sug­gest that death is on­ly and ever the solution.

Filed under Fiction on September 25th, 2026

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by Salvatore DIFALCO

The Con­tes­sa cools her­self with a pink silk fan as I climb her shoul­ders. I strad­dle her neck with my thighs in their green vel­vet leg­gings, and cov­er her right eye with my right hand while I raise a glass of ru­by with my left and thus sin­is­ter hand and toast the pur­ple phan­tasm mount­ing my shoul­ders, per­haps an in­car­na­tion of Bac­chus gen­er­at­ed by my psy­che. I toast you, Bac­chus! And I al­so toast Eros, who may be float­ing above Bac­chus, shoot­ing lit­tle ar­rows. Will this bring me mis­for­tune? Will this bring me mis­for­tune even if I am left-hand­ed? The Con­tes­sa is tol­er­ant in the ex­treme. Tick­led pink by me, she per­mits all man­ner of li­cense, with­in reason.

Wee, I can see the aban­doned green cas­tle from this lofty coign and the green lands sur­round­ing it. The cas­tle be­longed to the Contessa’s great grand­fa­ther long be­fore the fam­i­ly lost its for­tune. One of my japes to­day is wear­ing a scar­let jack­et that be­longs to her fa­ther, Count Monte­doro. Does it not look smart on me? Am I not spruce with it on? It makes me feel no­ble. That said, the Count will kill me be­fore this day is done. More claret, my dear? Please quit shuf­fling your feet in their pearl-bead­ed shoes. Do not let me spill it on your grass-smeared, wed­ding-white dress. She wore this dress why? To gam­bol with me up and down the grassy hills and over the fields like two lu­natics? Or to mock her fa­ther and their fa­mil­ial tra­di­tions, dic­tat­ed by blood bonds and sta­tus? But we are not get­ting mar­ried. We are get­ting drunk!

Thus far she has pol­ished off half the bot­tle. Of course I drank a bot­tle on my own be­fore we set off on our jour­ney. Ques­tion: How can she sup­port me and Bac­chus on her shoul­ders? I am not a small man. I am not a large man, but I am not a small one. And Bac­chus is Bac­chus, my grape-hued muse. Good ques­tion! You are do­ing well, Con­tes­sa. Wee! This makes me mer­ry, this makes the Con­tes­sa mer­ry. Her fa­ther would be hor­ri­fied if he could see her now. And if he saw me in his jack­et he would like­ly try to pierce me with the or­na­men­tal sword sheathed on his flank or shank me with the an­tique dirk he keeps in his sleeve. And I do not blame him. I do not blame your fa­ther, Con­tes­sa. No man of sound mind would sanc­tion my union with his daugh­ter or with any woman he knew. I am com­fort­able with this. But that does not mean I can­not play.

Wee, Con­tes­sa. I beg you not to stum­ble now, not to drop me with­out warn­ing. I sense a sub­tle slack­en­ing. Your laugh­ter has di­min­ished, dear. Are you not en­joy­ing your­self? Shall I jump down and per­form a few ac­ro­bat­ics for your amuse­ment? Bac­chus squeezes my head with his thighs. What is he try­ing to tell me? That I should jump down and do what is right? Or that he does not feel well and short­ly will evac­u­ate his con­tents? Con­tes­sa, Con­tes­sa, what shall we do? Shall I jump down? Or shall we run to the green cas­tle with me on your shoul­ders and Bac­chus on mine? I think you can do it. I be­lieve you can make it all the way.

She starts to move slow­ly. I stretch out my arms for bal­ance. But she does not pro­ceed in the di­rec­tion of the cas­tle. In­stead she lopes to the riv­er. Why are you head­ed to­ward the riv­er, love? She does not walk in a straight line, she weaves. She picks up speed even as she weaves. We are mov­ing at a smar­tish pace now. I feel the wind in my face. Bac­chus hangs on to my hair. The Con­tes­sa is full of sur­pris­es. I feel elat­ed. I feel elat­ed even as she runs head­long to­ward the river­bank. I feel us tip­ping, tip­ping for­ward. Bac­chus hangs on to my ears. A mo­ment of per­il seems im­mi­nent. And yet I am joy­ful. Very lit­tle is need­ed to be hap­py, re­al­ly. It is all with­in your­self and in your way of drinking.

Filed under Fiction on September 11th, 2026

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