The CuisinArt

Dylan’s Newest. Don’t Worry, you won’t feel so illiterate at the sight of his veritable display of vocabulary this time…
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- we are transferring power at this time…. Challenger is now running off its three onboard fuel cells…

The bath water splashed. Annoyed, bitter. Approximating her broken state. The letter dampened in her hand, the edges loosening from the water collected on her pruned fingertips. She read it over once again to make sure nothing was left out.

“Sweetie, is that the radio in there I hear?” Her mother pounded the door from the hallway.

“Of course,” she moaned.

“Oh, well… how much longer do you plan to contemplate suicide?”

“For as long as is suitable, mother.”

“Surely an hour and a half in the hot bath is enough.”

“It would be highly inappropriate to rush this decision ,” she spluttered. “And besides, the water is no longer hot.”

“So why do you insist on sitting in that tub with the door locked?”

She hit the water with frustration as the radio commented “…coming up on a go for all sequence start…”

“Even the most superior of minds in history have required seclusion! If there is a morsel of compassion in your withered body you will grant me this lavatory’s occupancy for this one night!”

“But we only have the one in the house and I have been in need of a constitution since you first locked yourself in there.”

“The level of your insensitivity staggers the mind,” she coughed. “When you were bawling over the cancellation of your favorite magazine did I not pat your back and say ‘There there?’ It seems only reasonable to ask the same from you in this, my time of pain. What is wrong with the Reenebeds water closet?”

“Baby, it is nearing midnight. I will not knock on their door at this hour for such a request.”

“Well, surely I can not be blamed for your timidity.”

“It would be uncouth, my dear!”

“And this abominable act you’re putting on isn’t? How ironic!” she sighed violently.

…and we have a go for auto sequence start, Challenger’s onboard computers have primary control of all the vehicle’s critical functions…

“What are you listening to?”

“It is a rebroadcast of the Challenger launch.”

“Oh. Darling,” her mother pleaded. “please unlock this, if only for the reason that when you kill yourself I can then enter and properly mourn your passing.”

“Your mourning would just be a humiliating display of lachrymal clichés. Best to avoid it altogether. You will have to mourn in this exact manner - through the door.”

“Honey, that is absurd. And, if I may say so, I would rather you not follow through with this threat. I rarely understand your actions, and this is no exception.”

The nearby radio announced “…T minus 17 seconds and counting…” and at that moment she furiously spat water against the closed door.

“Did you just spit at me?” Her mother gasped.

“I was planning to spit at the door when the countdown began regardless of whether or not you were on the other side.”

… 8… 7…

And there in the bath, water beneath her, she reached to the lighter on the sinks counter, cued it, and leaned its flame to the letter. The parchment burned. The edges squirreled around to touch the words, which there, on the backside, read mirrored.

This is timeless, she thought.

“Do I smell smoke?” Her mother squealed.

And a few years before this, far away from this Idaho bathtub, a space shuttle exploded.