Sally and Tom – A Love Story. Nah, Not Really.

Rui, a Costa Rican tour guide, struggled to wrestle the heavy canvas bag onto his boat. He had agreed to a private tour with a wealthy American woman who had recently lost her husband. She had requested to be transported to a small, uninhabited and rarely visited island off the coast, where she intended to bury her recently departed husband’s ashes.

The woman, Sally, had informed Rui that she and her husband had been to that island before on their many trips to Costa Rica, and that it was his favourite place to get away in his beautiful country. Rui, still struggling with the weight of the bags, assumed there was a lot more stowed in there than an urn of ashes, and a lot more to her story. She paid him well though, so he didn’t ask.

*

Sally and Tom met in college, he studying Business, she working toward her dream of being a nurse.

They got married shortly after graduation, choosing to live with her parents until they were both established in their chosen careers. Their first child, a son, was born two years to the day after their wedding. Another son, and a daughter would follow.

Sally and Tom were the typical American family; three kids, a house, and a dog; both working steadily to provide a stable and loving environment for their children and to improve their lot in life.

There were hockey practices and soccer practices, piano lessons, and gymnastics. There were birthday parties and graduations, skinned knees, and sprained ankles. Just like in every American family, there was lots of laughter, and a lot of tears. Lately, there were bucketloads of tears.

The day Tom told Sally he was leaving her for another woman was the worst day of her life. She was flabbergasted. Sally was not aware that Tom was unhappy in their marriage, or perhaps she just wasn’t paying attention. Sure they had arguments, like every couple, but she had no idea how unhappy he was.

The news hit her like a punch in the stomach. She cried. She screamed. She begged him not to leave her, insisting they could make their marriage better, that SHE could be a better wife for him.

He all but laughed in her face. She shot him in the head.

**

There wasn’t a lot of chit chat between Sally and her guide, Rui on the short trip to the island. Rui was still feeling apprehensive about whatever it was that Sally was carrying to the island with her in those bags, but still wouldn’t ask, partly because it wasn’t his concern, but mostly out of fear of her reaction. He pointed out a few landmarks and warned of the dangerous wildlife on the island, as he would with any tourist, but when he got no more than the occasional nod from Sally, he quickly realized that she was in no mood for conversation.

They arrived at the island about twenty minutes after departure and worked silently to unload Sally’s cargo. She asked Rui to help her carry the baggage to the tree line, then requested that he leave her be so she could say goodbye to her husband in private.

Rui could no longer contain his curiosity. He asked Sally what was in the bags. She calmly informed him she had carried some of her husband’s favourite things, and items that meant a lot to them as a couple to bury with him. Content with the explanation she gave, Rui left Sally on her own, behind the tree line, to say her goodbyes.

Sally was visibly nervous when Rui asked her about the bags, but now relieved that he seemed to believe her explanation, she got to work on her plan; the plan to dispose of her dismembered husband’s body parts.

***

Sally was aghast after the realization that she shot her husband. She hadn’t intended to do so. She felt like she was having an out of body experience. Some thing or some force drew her toward the gun case while Tom was still in the kitchen mocking her, telling her how he was going to take his new girlfriend on their planned anniversary trip to Costa Rica.

She didn’t intend to kill him. She had no idea what her intention was when she unlocked the case, grabbed the rifle, turned around and pulled the trigger.

When she saw his bloodied body fall to the floor, Sally panicked. Her initial instinct to try to save his life was quickly overtaken by her instinct for self-preservation when she realized there was nothing she could do. He was already dead. Calling 911 would not help. It would only ensure that she spent the rest of her life in prison.

She rushed to garage, grabbed a tarp Tom used to cover his tools, and hurried back to the kitchen to wrap the body. Sally dragged her husband’s corpse back to the garage and wrestled it into the freezer, where it would stay until she could retrieve surgical supplies and draining tubes from work.

The next day, she hoisted his body into the trunk of her car, collected his chainsaw and the surgical tools she took from the hospital, and drove to their cottage. She knew none of the neighbours would be around in January. It was the perfect location to complete the dismemberment.

When she was finished her gruesome task, she stored Tom’s body parts in the freezer and drove back to town.

Then she needed a story to explain to their adult children, why their father wasn’t around. She sent herself an email from his laptop stating that he was leaving her for another woman. The email further stated that Tom and his mistress were going out of town, and that he would contact the kids when they returned.

Sally wasn’t sure if the kids bought her story. They asked a lot of questions to which she had no answers. Her only solution was to act devastated and claim that she was just as much in the dark as they were.

A couple of weeks later, when the time came close for their planned anniversary vacation, Sally told the children that she would take the trip to Costa Rica herself. Her daughter offered to come with, but Sally insisted she needed some time alone.

On the day of departure, Sally hired a private plane from money withdrawn from her and Tom’s retirement fund, drove to the cottage to retrieve her secret baggage, then headed to the private airfield to begin her journey.

****

As she sat against a rock in the bush behind the tree line, Sally pondered what to do with her dead husband’s head. She already had a plan for the legs and torso. She would take the short ten-minute hike across the island and drop those parts near the estuary. She and Tom had been there before, and narrowly escaped being eaten by a crocodile. There would be no escape for him this time.

Sally giggled to herself at the image of crocodiles gobbling up her husband’s lower appendages and thought of another useless appendage she would take extreme joy in seeing crushed. Yeah, she’d be sure to stomp on that before leaving it on the shore.

Knowing she didn’t have a lot of time, and had some heavy carriage to transport, Sally strapped her rifle across her shoulders and headed deeper into the bush. She knew it would take longer than a simple hike, due to the weight of the packages she dragged along with her.

Much to her relief, some of her load was lessened shortly after the hike began when she came across a hungry jaguar growling at her from behind the trees. Sally threw a leg at the wild cat, hoping that would sate its appetite, and more so hoping she wouldn’t have to shoot it instead. The jaguar chewed the leg as ferociously as a ravenous hyena. Poor baby must be hungry, Sally mused, before throwing it an arm for dessert.

Her load now significantly lighter, Sally made it to estuary faster than anticipated. She unloaded her cargo, said a quick goodbye to her dear husband’s remaining parts, and started back to the other side of the island.

All she had left to dispose of was Tom’s head.

She had already decided on the way that her dead husband’s head would be buried beneath a coconut tree, the same tree they carved their initials on when they first visited the island many years ago. He would be buried face-up, she determined. That way he would be facing his own betrayal forever, or at least until he rotted or got eaten by the wildlife. She dug the hole near the tree with the collapsible shovel she brought with her, and went to retrieve the head from the canvas bag she carried it in.

When Sally opened the bag, she immediately fell to her knees and clasped her hand over her mouth to muffle her scream. She quickly rezipped the bag and tried to regulate her heartbeat. It was pounding so hard, she thought it might jump through her chest at the sight she just witnessed.

His eyes blinked. The decapitated head of her husband blinked.

After a moment of calm, and convincing herself she was hallucinating, she gained the courage to open it again.

“What the hell did you do to me, Bitch,” came the shout from within.

Sally picked up the shovel and wacked Tom’s head straight in the face. It didn’t work. He kept yelling.

Wack!

“Give it up, you crazy bitch. I’m already dead!”

Wack!

“You’re not going to get away with this, Bitch!”

Wack! Wack”

“Stop hitting me with the fucking shovel Sally,” Tom’s head bellowed.

“Stop calling me a bitch Tom,” Sally screamed back at him.

“Ok, ok. Just relax, “ Tom replied.

Sally laid the shovel aside, sat down next to Tom’s finally quiet head and tried to figure how, in the name of all that’s holy, this thing could be alive. And worse, how could it be speaking? She was still trying to convince herself she was seeing things. Maybe from stress, maybe from guilt, or maybe just exhaustion; but there was no way this could be real.

Except it was real. Every time she looked in the direction of that canvas bag, there was Tom’s head, blinking and staring and blinking more and staring more.

“Can I have my eye back,” he asked?

Sally hadn’t realized that in one of the many whacks she gave Tom with the shovel, his eye flew out and landed on the ground. She had picked it up and was rolling it in her fingers like a marble.

“Disgusting,” she declared as she popped the eyeball back into the vacant socket.

“That’s disgusting,” Tom laughed? “You shot me in the head, dismembered me, and you’re disgusted by an eyeball?”

“You’re such as ass, Tom” his clearly frustrated wife stated.

“You fed my ass to the crocodiles Sally, remember?”

Sally let out a small snicker. One of the things she loved most about Tom was his quirky sense of humor. He still had it. Even though he was just a head in a bag, he still had that crazy sense of humor.

“Why did you kill me,” Tom asked?

Why did you cheat on me, Tom” came her cold reply.

“I don’t know, honey.”

Sally laughed sarcastically at his response and barked that she didn’t believe him.

“I really don’t know,” Tom insisted. “Maybe my memory is rotting with my detached brain. What I do know is that I’m sorry and I want to go home.”

Tom’s head waited for a response from his wife. He could see that she was distraught, and perhaps a little regretful.

“Are you going to take me back home, Sally?’

“What?” Sally was stunned by his request. Of course, she couldn’t take his head back home. What would she do with it?

“You could put me on the mantle,” Tom suggested.

“No, I can’t put you on the mantle, you lunatic. I’ll get caught.”

“That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it,” Tom said snidely. “You never cared about me. You only ever cared about yourself. That’s why I left you, Sally. Because you’re a selfish bitch!”

Sally was seething with anger. She was beginning to regret what she did to him, but not anymore. Not after those words. She picked up the shovel and smashed it over his head again while screaming at him to stop talking.

But he wouldn’t stop. He just kept yapping; telling her he would never stop. He would haunt her for life, he yelled. Even after she cut his tongue off, he still didn’t stop.

“ITH NAT GON WOK, BITH” he snarled. “I WAN THUT UP EVA.”

Sally wacked him again, and again, all the while frantically screaming “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Over and over, she smashed the shovel against her husband’s decapitated head, until she heard a shout behind her.

She turned to see her guide Rui, with two local police officers yelling at her to drop the shovel. When she heard the click of their guns, she did precisely as they instructed. Sally dropped the shovel and turned towards the bag on the ground.

Much to her horror, what she saw in the bag was exactly what the officers and Rui saw, the decapitated head of her deceased husband. It wasn’t staring. It wasn’t blinking, and it most certainly wasn’t talking. It was just there, partially smashed with a shovel and clearly dead.

Sally fell to the ground and began shaking violently, terrified of the predicament she found herself in. She was caught red handed. She was going to jail.

Her terror quickly dissipated however when she just as quickly realized that she didn’t care. Sally started to laugh uncontrollably. She just didn’t care. She was going to spend her life in prison or be committed to an institution for the criminally insane, but she didn’t give a shit.

All Sally cared about, as she smiled at the battered head of her husband, was that the talking head wasn’t real. He wouldn’t be around to haunt her after all. None of it was real. The head was as dead as dead gets. The entire conversation was just a hallucination……or was it?