The man who lives next door took my old girlfriend.

I had propped her up against the  dumpster in the alley. But not five minutes later I saw him sauntering toward his porch with her tucked under his arm and a grin on his face.

It’s just as well, I thought with good reason, for I had thrown her out. Yet I caught myself thinking about them. (Guys get like that so it’s fine, really.) I also thought about her two dimensional curves and her icy eyes–her best feature.

I had to see her again. Under the cover of night I crept over to the man’s house and peered through a window. He was on the couch uttering things to her. She was leaning against the wall, staring at him. Those eyes used to fixate on me, I said to myself, consumed with rage probably.

The next day while the man was out, I broke into his house. She was in the bedroom. I pounced and ripped her to shreds. Then I lit her on fire. But I don’t understand fire. So the fire spread to the rest of the house.

I ran back to my house and dialed my realtor.

Have you eaten, asked the woman I found out in the rain. She made herself at home in my kitchen.

I nodded.

She knew I was lying. Still, she took the food from my cupboard and ate it as though she were entitled to do so. How long she had been out in the rain, I don’t know; neither do I know why she had been out there without coat or umbrella.

I’m still hungry, said the woman I found out in the rain. I had already sold what was supposedly valuable to make it through the winter. I didn’t bother telling her that she had just eaten all of it.

I went into my study to get my mother’s emerald ring. Her husband had given it to her before dying. Which is what mother did: When you marry, give her this, she instructed me once from her sickbed. It’s just as well, I mused, as I took the ring from its drawer, that’ll never happen now anyway.

……….

I brought back bread, charcoal, poultry, and rice.

That’s it? asked the woman I found out in the rain.

I was beginning to understand why I found her out in the rain.