The Perfect Murder

A7 –Story Telling 3 －The Moral of The Story (4~6 minutes)

 Delivered at Fluency English club on Jan 16, 2007

Objectives: To understand that a story can be entertaining and yet display moral values

          To create a new story that offers a lesson or moral

Dear friends,

Have you ever thought of murdering your hateful spouse? Heee.., today I have a story just for you.

It was one cold winter night. I was already in bed and tucked myself comfortably in my goose-down comforter and with a favorite book in hand. All of a sudden, the telephone rings pierced through the silent night so tensely that I had to rush to the phone in the Olympics 100 meter speed.

“MOSI, MOSI”, Japanese has become my spontaneous language now.

A weak, sobbing, voice came into my ear…” I will kill him first and then commit suicide afterwards…” The caller was my best friend from college. She got married with a brutal husband who beat her up just like three meals a day. Usually, she would just seek for my comfort and then continuing on with her tragic married life. But this time she was determined to kill her husband no matter what I said to her. In panic, I shouted out to her: “OK, Ok, if you really want to kill him, let’s plan a Perfect Murder so that you don’t have to waste your life over him too.”

The Perfect Murder was in planning…

But how do you murder someone without getting caught; that was the question. We thought of millions of ways of killing but always found flaws to all those methods. We could not afford to under-estimate the intelligence of the police officers and risk the chances of being caught. Then one day, I saw an article on the newspaper- the top ten death causes of Taiwanese. Like a lightening strikes into my head, finally, I had found the way to the perfect Murder. I told my friend: “We don’t kill him, we let him kill himself. Go quickly, enroll yourself to the best cooking class in town and cook the most yummy, fat-rich, unhealthy cousin for your husband everyday. Get him fat, get him sick, and let him die of heart-attack. Nobody would suspect you for trying to kill your husband by performing a good wife’s duty i.e. too provide delicious meals.

So, the perfect murder was in processing…

I waited impatiently for the result. A year had gone by; I asked my friend how it went. She answered: “Not yet, be patient!”  Strangely, somehow I sensed that she was quite happy. “Hmm, the plan must have been working…” I said to myself.

Another year had gone by, her husband was not yet dead but my friend seemed to be happier every time I talked to her. Then one day, she showed up in front of me looking stunning and fabulous, with CHANEL here and CHANEL there. She had turned into such a beautiful, attractive and RICH woman. Then she shocked me even more by breaking a piece of news: “I don’t want to kill my husband anymore.” She told me… “After you told me to enroll in the cooking class, I have become so fond of cooking. Other than providing delicious dishes to my husband, I have made it as a career and am quite successful with it. I have found the meaning of my life and I fell so wonderful now. Not only that, my husband stopped beating me; he even adores me now.” Then bashfully she told me:“We are now very much in love.”

My dear friends, looks like the old saying is very true: “The way to control your husband is through his stomach…” I had also come to a conclusion from this experience. If you want to murder your spouse, think it twice, think it over, and think of a perfect murder. The best bet would be killing him with your kindness and love.

                                                    By Melody Hou