Page 36 of The Secret Dinner

04:53

That was INSANE!!!!

04:53

Hugo

Body’s in the car

04:55

Heading home

04:55

Piglet

Hurry up

04:55

I’m gonna eat some food. Getting horny.

04:55

*HUNGRY

04:55

EXOTIC CUTS

1

As soon as we got home we took the drawers out of the deep freezer and propped the body inside, upright. Still buzzing from the adrenaline, I popped three Klonopin, but it didn’t help. I sat in the armchair in the living room, in front of the switched-off TV, leafing through self-help books. How to Get Out of Sticky Situations. The Secret to Self-Confidence. Ten Steps to a New You. Just in case, I also consulted the Brazilian Penal Code. Title V, chapter II: Crimes against respect for the dead. Article 212: Desecration of a corpse or its ashes. Penalty: imprisonment, one to three years, and a fine. To my surprise, cannibalism was not covered by the Penal Code. Desecrating the corpse was a problem, but eating its meat was apparently fine.

I could see the sun already rising through the window. I hadn’t slept a wink but opened a browser to check the headlines on all the major news portals. I wish I saw NEW KID ON THE BLOCK LAUNCHES MILLION-DOLLAR START-UP. Or maybe RURAL PARANÁ WUNDERKIND SHAKES UP MARKETPLACE. Or even DANTE’S PARADISE: BRIGHT YOUNG TALENT BURSTS ONTO MARKET. But no.

On every page, the lead story was BODY TAKEN FROM RIO HOSPITAL, or SUSPECT BREAKS INTO PUBLIC HOSPITAL TO STEAL CADAVER, or my personal favorite, BODY SNATCHED: GRANDMA GOES MISSING! I clicked the links and there was one really low-res still taken from CCTV footage outside the hospital. You couldn’t make out my face, but I recognized myself in the lab coat in that blurry photo. The beer belly, the scrawny legs, the way I leaned over the corpse in the wheelchair.

A body had been taken from a public hospital and people were curious, they wanted to understand, interact, gossip. The comments section was a cesspool. People blamed aliens, the government, feminism. Some alleged the body had never existed. Technology has given man the freedom to fill cyberspace with whatever bullshit they please. Stupid opinions, crazy conspiracy theories, fake news. I felt even more frantic: All this media coverage would force the police to do a thorough investigation. In the kitchen, I made chamomile tea to calm myself down. I grabbed some cheese and ham from the fridge and made a sandwich. I almost opened the freezer but remembered just in time that there was a dead body propped inside.

Piglet came into the kitchen with bed head and a puffy face creased from his pillow, yawning with drool clinging to the side of his mouth. He’d slept like a baby. He was wearing SpongeBob boxers and was holding a very big, very sharp knife. It was a jarring sight.

I showed him the headline from one of the websites.

“Hey, you’re famous,” he said.

“I’m screwed, is what I am! I’m going to jail!”

Piglet grinned, leaving the butcher knife on the kitchen table. He took four slices of bread and a spoon and helped himself to a jar of Nutella.

“You’re white, handsome, with a college degree. And it’s Brazil. You’re not going to jail.”

“This is no time for jokes, Piglet.”

“It’s not a joke. I think we just see things differently.”

“What do you mean?”