Falling on Deaf Ears by Laurence Croft

Tom used to play a cruel joke on me: he would put his hand in front of his mouth, preventing me from lipreading, then say stuff that made his mates laugh. I’ll never know what he said, but their mockery made me so miserable that I ended up on sertraline.

So, one evening, I got my own back. I spiked Tom’s drink, then tied him to a chair in the basement.

“What’s the difference,” I said, when he came to, “between Tom and tears?”

I cackled gleefully, relishing my own wit. Then I brandished the knife.

“Tom has no ears.”