2021 February Flash Fiction Challenge: Day 4

As always, if you’re on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (or anywhere else), don’t forget to use the #FlashFictionFeb hashtag.

Any home or professional cooks out there? For today’s prompt, select a kitchen item and write from its perspective.

Remember: These prompts are just starting points; you have the freedom to go wherever your flash of inspiration takes you.

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The Writer

It wasn’t a great shock to anyone but the Cast Iron Pan when Maude died. The rest of us saw her wrinkles getting deeper, her breathing getting more labored, the amount of time she spent puttering around the kitchen get shorter and shorter. The Cast Iron was more stubborn, convinced that she was ageless. That’s what years in the honored spot on the counter will do to you, I guess.

Maude’s children filed through the house. Katie went from room to room, stroking things that brought up memories, weeping loudly and with gusto. Teddy, ever the practical one, followed behind her with a pad of sticky notes, marking items for keep and for sale. Cast Iron, of course, was kept.

The rest of us got thrown into boxes and put on the lawn. Everything must go.

I expected to sit there until I rusted or someone gave up and hauled us off to Goodwill or worse—put us on the curb for trash. But after only a few hours half-shielded from the sun, someone dug through my box and pulled me out, brandishing me like Excalibur.

“Ah ha!” He grinned. “I’ve been looking for someone like you.”

I’d never seen him before in my life. He was unremarkable in the face, someone you might see once in a crowd or in line at the store and then never think of again. But he was so happy to see me, and he paid the whopping $1.25 sticker price as if buying gold.

It wasn’t until we got to his car and he’d placed me gently on the leather seat that I understood.

“I think first we will play with splatter patterns,” he said. “I want to see the easiest way to avoid getting caught for murder.”

I had been purchased by a lunatic.

“Maybe after that, we can determine how much force would be needed to, I don’t know, break fingers?”

I tried to focus on memories of being new, when Teddy was small and would bang me against Pots and Pans until Maude came running. Or family crab feasts, when Katie would get too impatient with the crackers and smash me down against the shells. Those were the days. He kept up his horrifying diatribe the entire way home, oblivious to my internal screaming. The trash would have been better than this.

We arrived at his home, but it was as nondescript as he was—not the decrepit lair I’d assumed such a person would slink back to. He waved me cheerfully at a neighbor, earning a laugh, before we disappeared into the house.

The Kitchen was just inside the door. He plunked me down on the counter and whistled his way into another room. I missed the sound of Jeopardy playing too-loudly from the next room and Maude’s haggard coughing.

“Oh, good, he found one!” the Bamboo spoon called out.

“Nice! Welcome to the Kitchen, buddy!” the Blender said.

I would have cried if I had eyes.

“This man is going to attempt a murder,” I said.

There was a beat of silence before the Fridge started howling.

“Oh, no!” the Filet Knife yelped. “He’s not a murderer, Mallet, he’s a writer!”

“A writer?!”

“Yes! Mostly murder mysteries; he’s thinking about starting a series about a chef-turned-detective,” the Sink burbled.

“A writer,” I said.

“You got it. He spends a lot of time thinking out loud, and he even has his Computer read his drafts out loud while he cooks,” the Blender said. “The only downside is that his research is, uh, kind of hands-on.”

“He…he mentioned seeing if I could break fingers.”

The Oven chuckled. “Not real fingers. He’ll probably smash you against some stuff and measure the force and angle.”

Well, that was better than murder for sure. But not nearly as good as family crab feasts.

He came back into the room, a manic grin on his face. His fingers were slightly sweaty as he picked me up. “I put a watermelon in the driveway. Let’s go play!”

“You’ll get used to it,” Cutting Board said. “Have fun!”

“Oh, boy,” I said.

A writer.

I wondered what Cast Iron was up to.