Tuesday

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RING! The egg cooker lets out a shrill scream before a hand quickly shuts it off. A little girl looking no older than eight bustles about the family kitchen. Her mom is out on a business trip, and her dad went to work early this morning. As a result, she’s stuck alone at home with her older sister who sits upstairs playing videogames at full volume.

Caroline, her older sister, has been hogging the only computer all day, and our young narrator is utterly fed up. Earlier this morning, she had begged her sister to cook something only to be dismissed with a wave of the hand. “Caroline might not eat, but it doesn’t mean I can’t,” the little girl had angrily fumed. An hour later, she simply couldn’t take it.

Pots clanged against each other with a metallic ring as she tried to find the right one. It took multiple drawers to find each correct utensil, but our dogged child located everything she needed. She lined them all up- a small stainless-steel pot, a pair of wooden chopsticks, a bag of ramen, two eggs, an egg cooker, a knife, and scissors.

Everything was perfect and organized. “I could do this every day,” she thought to herself. The satisfaction could almost fill the hole of her stomach. She plugged in the egg cooker and plopped in two eggs.

“Carolineee! How much water do I add for eggs?” she screamed at the stairs.

Silence falls through the house. When her sister still refuses to respond, she calls again, “Caroline!”

An annoyed groan carries down the stairs, sinking into the carpet floor. “I thought you were dead,” quips the young girl, “now telll me!”

“It should tell you. Oh my God, how hard can it be?” Caroline snaps.

A few minutes pass, before she needs help again.

“Carolineee! How many minutes do I set this thing to?” she hollered again.

“Oh my god, just search it up. Stop bothering me.” the reply was much more frustrated now.

The young sister ignored the irritated tone of the response and added the instructed amount of water before setting the cooker to seven minutes as Google told her. After the eggs began cooking, she moved to the ramen. She turned on the stove lights and filled her pot with water. It was considerably heavier when filled and she spilled a little while walking from the sink to the stove.

“Uhhh, Caroline, I accidentally spilled some water,” she called up hesitantly.

“Yeah, yeah,” the noncommittal reply drifted lazily down like smoke wafting down a downtown avenue on a Friday night.

Arms shaking from the weight, our young girl hefted the pot onto the back left burner. Then, she turned on the fire. Her heart leapt in her chest as a giant flame roared to life, but her hands quickly turned the knob to low. The water begins bubbling as the timer for the eggs rings. The little girl opens the cooker lid and feels a sharp gust of steam hit her in the face. She flinches but shakes herself off, reminding herself to be strong. She moves away to drop the ramen into the pot. “Jie jie,” she calls, using the Mandarin word for big sister, “how much spice do I use?” Her sister doesn’t even bother to respond now, so she cuts all the packets and pours in the spices.

Steam from the eggs and boiling water has gathered in the air. The damp air causes the young girl’s lungs to burn, and she coughs. Using the two bamboo chopsticks, she stirs the sauces into the water. She makes one final, deciding mistake; she places the chopsticks too close to the flame. They quickly begin to burn, and the paper towel beneath them catches fire too. The child’s eyes widen in fear, watching the towel host the flame which prickles like a bright, burning fear. The towel is incinerated, and its ashes are lost to the suffocating grey steam which hovers over her head like a wretched storm. The stove fan isn’t on and the smoke from the fire doesn’t dissipate.

Panic grips our poor seven-year-old’s heart. She thinks about calling her big sister, but she’s scared of what her sister would say. She can already picture the disappointment and the guilting sown into every, “I told you!” “Think, think. Please think. There must be something. You can do this. You can stop this,” she screams at herself. The burning flame continues spreading no matter how loud she internally begs, however. Soon, the cabinets begin smoking, and the fire detector begins blaring.

“Mei mei! What the heck!” the shrill scream from her older sister roots her in place. She’s been caught, and she can’t think. It’s all too much. She tries to move her legs and run but finds herself paralyzed in place. Everything from this morning- all the frustration and panic comes rushing back to her. Gone is the fleeting pride, replaced by fear. She watches the flame spread towards her. It wavers back and forward, slowly swallowing every polished surface.

(Caroline) I run down the stairs, missing one in the middle and nearly twisting my ankle. For once, my little sister is quiet, but it doesn’t bring me any relief. I hear the blaring of the fire alarm, persistent and dangerous. “Our parents will be furious,” my thoughts race in my head, calculating every way we can reduce our parent’s fury. I skip the last step and stare at the horror before me. Lashing flames have replaced our kitchen, and dark smoke sweeps into every nook and cranny. The cabinets are burning, our towels are burning, and at the center of it all, I see a terrified figure staring into nothing. Tears are streaming down her ashen cheeks, and her hands are clenched by her sides. I try screaming her name and telling her to come back. I want to charge through the flames but my feet are routed in place, refusing to take me to my stranded sister. “Coward,” I scream at myself. I’m crying too, now, and I hate how weak I am. My voice comes out choked by the insufferable smoke as well as my sobbed breaths. I yell at the top of my lungs. “Please,” I scream, “come back to me! Mei mei! Plea-se! Plea-se! I love you!”

(Narrator) In the back of my mind, a hoarse voice is calling for me. It reaches me through the roar of the flame and the whirlwind in my head, and I know it’s Caroline. I can’t tell what she’s saying, but I can feel the warmness in her voice.