I submitted what follows for my first assignment for my short story module. It is, for those requiring clarification, a parody of the work of Franz Kafka, particularly 'The Bridge'.
I was stationary and cold. I was an oven. I sat in the corner of a kitchen. My knees drawn up to my chin, and my arms clutched around them, I was huddled up close to the wall in the only available alcove. My coat was dark in comparison with all the other white-coated appliances with whom I shared a room. Nearby the Washing Machine brawled away. Nobody ever used him more than once a week; when they did, he became so excited that he had to shout so as to let everybody else know of it. I was used daily, however. Every day I just had to wait until the Master decided he was hungry. Then I knew I would have to make myself hot for him.
It was towards mealtime one day – was it lunch, was it dinner? I cannot tell – the Clock was always positioned just out of my line of sight. Many a time had I asked him to roll just slightly to his left so that I may be able to see the time. He has never obliged. Anyway, I digress. It was towards mealtime one day – probably the evening meal, for that is when I am most used – when the Master decided to cook a Pizza for his consumption. He knelt in front of me and looked at me. Then he smiled. It was a fat, greedy smile. He reached out and fiddled with my knobs. His touch was cold. He twisted and turned them quite deliberately. I didn’t like it, but I let him do it to me. I so wanted to please him.
Eventually he settled on the desired temperature. I felt the warmth stirring within me. It began far down in the lowest regions of my body and slowly spread throughout. I waited. I saw the Master pacing steadily up and down the kitchen, licking his lips greedily as his mind mused upon the prospect of the Pizza. I watched him all the while. I just had to wait. He began parting my knees, opening up my legs and looking inside me. Each time he grunted impatiently. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, that by constantly opening the door he was continually letting the heat out. But I just couldn’t find the words. He closed my legs again. He looked very cross with me. I had so wanted to please. He resumed his frustrated pacing.
But, thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to heat up this time. As soon as I knew I was hot enough, I tried to catch his attention. I closed my eye, extinguishing the little pinpoint of red which it gave off. But he didn’t see! I just kept getting hotter and hotter! The warmth kept on building up inside me! I began to panic!
He continued pacing for several minutes more before he finally saw that I was ready. Then I saw him turn his attention to the Freezer. His mouth opened wide, and he exhaled the foul breath of early morning upon the face of the Master. The Master shivered. The Freezer had always had a rather icy personality. He stuck his tongue out insolently; the Master reached out and endeavoured to pull out the Pizza, which he had balanced on the end of it. But the Freezer clung onto it; the Master had to tug and tug before he could retrieve it.
With the Pizza in his hands, the Master walked up to me again. But as he reached forward to part my legs once more, I realized I couldn’t keep my eye closed any longer. Tears were building up behind my eyelid. I simply had to relieve myself! I opened my eye, and the red light began beaming once more.
The Master let out an infuriated scream and hit me with his fists. I felt absolutely terrible. I had only wanted to please.
I had always had trouble maintaining a constant temperature. I ran on electricity. I had always dreamed of being an infinitely more efficient oven of the gas variety, like my father. But we electric ovens have never stayed at the right temperature. I mean, we stay around it, but if we drop just slightly below what the Master desires, we have to let him know. It has always been a little tradition of ours. But other people don’t understand. Most feel we are far too pedantic regarding out duty. Luckily, as he looked at me with rising anger, I finally managed to close my eye again.
He smiled, warmly. Then he picked up the Pizza and parted my legs once more. Looking within, hungrily, he reached in and placed the Pizza on the middle shelf. He closed my legs. He left me huddled up, deep within the alcove.
*
I was cold and stiff. I had been sitting in the freezer for all eternity. Tick tock goes the clock. It may have been a year that I have sat in here, freezing my pepperoni off, and all for want of a view of the Clock. I mean any clock. Not the Clock. I couldn’t stand the man. There he was, everyday, sitting pride of place on the kitchen counter. I couldn’t help thinking, had I been in the Fridge, I would have fulfilled my life’s purpose and been gone long before my use-by date. Instead, here I continued to sit, amongst a sea of icicles and frost, alone, with only the Peas for company, in a white, frosty wasteland.
Suddenly, and without warning, a burst of white light engulfed me, and a draft of glorious warm air hit me in the olives. A figure, silhouetted against the sky, beckoned to me.
‘Is this the end?’ I asked myself.
The figure reached out and held me gently. ‘Come my dear – it’s time,’ the man said.
I felt certain that this was the end. Here was my maker, my destiny; it appeared I was about to ascend into Pizza Heaven. And then I saw his steely countenance. I heard the legs of the furnace being wrenched open. The man grinned, and began to slide me, menacingly, into the warm belly of the beast.
‘No!’ I tried to scream. ‘Do not cook from frozen! Defrost first! Defrost, man!’
But I went unheard, and slowly I began to roast away in that chamber of death, burning in an atmosphere filled with the scent of slowly melting mozzarella.
*
I was small and spherical. I was a Pea. Sitting huddled up with our oversized jacket draped about me, snuggled up with all of my brothers and sisters, my job didn’t seem as bad as most tended to assume it would be. The cold wasn’t too unbearable, either. I didn’t have much chance to move, it was true. My days passed in little more than a haze, secluded, continually shrouded in unrelenting darkness, but at least I had company. The voices of a hundred or more of my brethren filled my ears. The conversation wasn’t bad either. What did we think of the Chips at the back? Who was the Old Bean who had recently moved in upstairs? Mindless chit chat, but at least we enjoyed ourselves. Huddled up into little balls, with our knees against our chins and our arms tucked in tightly against our bodies, it was really all the enjoyment we had. But it wasn’t as dull as you may have expected.
And, of course, we got to know the other people whom we shared living quarters with. The Beer wasn’t too bad. He had just moved in a few minutes ago. They said he would move again very shortly, that his residence herein was just a way of rapidly cooling him. But he generally was liked by all. The Pizza, too, had been popular, but sadly he was no longer with us. He had gone out just a few moments before, in fact, but none of us expected him to return. His life’s purpose was about to be fulfilled. It was a saddening thought, but we were all content in the knowledge that he was going where nature had intended. That, conversely, was a soothing thought.
Suddenly, the Stranger whose presence oversaw us opened the mouth of the Freezer once more, and grabbed hold of the coat which most of the peas had wrapped themselves up in. The Stranger searched with his large, pudgy finger for the large tear he had made in the coat’s fabric, and opened it up wider with his hands. With the Freezer’s mouth still open, gawping at the spectacle, we saw the Stranger throw the contents of the coat into the steaming geyser which rested upon the head of the Oven. We could hear the screams as their skin hit the boiling water. We felt so helpless; we strongly felt the guilt of the survivor. It could have been us tossed into that terrible pool, after all, had we not fallen out of the coat as he grabbed it. If only we had not been so lazy and still: if only we could have been bothered to cling on, to make the effort to climb back inside the warmth of its many folds.
*
After a while – a few minutes, or an hour perhaps – the Master parted my legs once again and peered hungrily inside. He pulled the pizza out from within, and caressed it with his fingers. Then his amicable face turned to one of fury as he realised his dinner was still undercooked. He looked at me with sheer contempt. I tried to tell him that it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t Pizza’s fault either! He should have listened to the instructions the Pizza had yelled at him, or at least perused the available information. He had his preparation guidelines tattooed on his backside, after all. You couldn’t miss them! But he wouldn’t listen to any of us. He hurled the Pizza out through the open window in a fit of rage, and then stormed out of the room. I looked up at the Counter. A piece of Stem Ginger stood on his head, leaning back in a bowl luxuriously. He lay there, laughing at our misfortune. It wasn’t that which upset me though. After all, he was an ugly, knobbly brute. Taunts from him couldn’t hurt me. It was that the Master left me there for so long, feeling unbearably ashamed that I hadn’t pleased him. I simply couldn’t stand not knowing how long he was going to leave me there. I had to see the time. I yelled at the Clock, shouting at him to turn and face me. The seclusion was unbearable. I began clanging my legs open and close several times. I was making more of a racket than the Washing Machine ever had in his entire distinguished career. I turned all of my knobs up as far as they would go. I felt the heat rising within me with the increase of my frustration and my rage. Fires lit upon my brow. The Peas shook violently. Several bailed, their screams ringing out as they plummeted down to the cold, tiled floor below. My light blinked rapidly. The heat was unbearable. The wrath within me was all-consuming. And then, as I reached the peak of my frustration, I heard a bang. I felt my entire body shudder with the force. My light went out. I could not see. I parted my legs, and a large plume of smoke billowed out into the still air of the kitchen.
The Stem Ginger’s taunts played upon my ears no more. I could not hear the shrieks of the Peas. All was silence.
Silence, and darkness.
2011
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