Old is Gold

Sonal Singh posted under Flash Fiction QuinTale-27 on 2021-02-05



‘Please, not that!’ I groaned as the stench of balsamic assaulted me. ‘Someone, please teach this idiot that balsamic is used in dressing and not basting. Ugh!’  A cook she is not! After she finished, I was almost as dead as the food inside me. Had I had any entrails, I would have thrown them up in a gag reflex. But, we microwaves have only cavities and no stomachs. As usual, she did not bother to clean me out that night.  I hardly slept, marinating as I was in the putrid odours of burnt sauce and meat.  ***  ‘Who’s that?’ He looked like a younger (ahem…much younger!) cousin of mine. He was all chrome and had a shiny, sly glint to his façade. She sat him beside me on the kitchen counter and jumped up and down, clapping her hands in glee. ‘Act your age woman!’ I wanted to beep in disgust. She was behaving like an immature, overexcited kid with a new toy. But, why would she keep her toy in the kitchen? I tell you, she is weird. Sometimes she licks her fingers and dances in the kitchen.  ‘Psst…who are you?’ I mumbled that night, trying to dislodge food from my cavity. Sleep was a dream again, suffocating as I was in a deluge of vanilla. She failed at baking today! ‘Dude, I’m an oven,’ he replied in a hoity-toity, bored voice, ‘the latest model.’ ‘Hah, only an oven!’ I beeped in relief and felt some of his haughtiness seep into my metallic bones. I was an oven, toaster, food warmer and grill; clearly, more important.  But, wait!  If I could perform more functions than he could, why did she need this inferior piece? Gosh, was she discarding me? After all the torture that I bore over the years… imagine! Why the ungrateful B****! I beeped in fury. ‘Shush…’ The oven protested loudly.  The gall of the brat asking me to shush! Such a snob he was! I tell you, the new generation has no respect for us old…erm, mature ones.  But, I quietened my incensed beeps. I had much to think about. Replacement by a younger model meant that she would hand me over to one of those filthy, swarthy and mean-looking men who came sometimes to take her electronics. God knows what they did with innocents like me. Probably, tore our virginal (single-ownership) bodies and had their way with us. Oh God, how abhorrent!  The next few nights I could not sleep and not on account of her experimentation.  *** Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep… The smoke alarm sang. Frantically, she fanned a dishrag at the oven’s gaping mouth spewing sooty smoke.  ‘How the mighty fall!’ I chuckled, content in the knowledge that I was now semi-retired and used only to heat food (thankfully, mostly take away). Saved! She couldn’t discard me now could she? After all, I was a gift from her mummy. Old is gold, isn’t it? The rest – well, that’s the oven’s story now.

[ratemypost]

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