Beyond Flames

Seden had started cooking dinner about ten minutes ago, but the smell that was coming from the tiny kitchen wasn’t a nice one. Emeka and I really tried to focus on the lame sit com that was playing on the tv, but after another five minutes of living through Sedens’ grunting coming from the kitchen, along with the sudden smokey waft coming our way, I stood up and made my way to the kitchen. Alarmed at seeing the amounts of smoke coming out of the pan on the cooker, I turn to Seden, who just looks helpless and a bit panicked. In a reflex, I turn out the cooker and grab the pan in both hands, ready to dump it in the sink. But what I didn’t count on was that the pan might be hot, which it was. Despite of my first reaction to let go of the hot metal, I keep holding on as I suck in a breath between my teeth. Once it’s dumped in the sink, I turn the water on allowing my hands to cool off. The skin was turning an angry red color, but I payed no attention to it as I send a glare Sedens’ way. “You could’ve warned me it was hot.” I said.

“How was I supposed to know that? I don’t know the first thing about cooking!” She cried.

“What were you attempting to make anyway?” I asked, biting the inside of my cheek to hold in the cries of pain. Damn, that hurt. Remind me to never, ever hold a pan when I’m not sure it’s about a hundred degrees.

Seden bit her lip in a confused matter as her eyebrows drew together. “It was just the water for the spaghetti!” She said. “I should be able to cook water, shouldn’t I? Oh god, I’ll never find a husband.” How did this conversation go from burning freaking water, which I thought was impossible, to a husband?

“Okay, keep the whole husband talk for later to have girl time with Sarah or something, but-” I started. “can you please explain to me how you’ve managed to burn water?”

“You burned water?” Emeka’s surprised voice called. “How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know, okay! It isn’t only water, though..” She mumbled the last part.

“What is in it that we don’t know about?” I asked, worried about what Seden could have thrown in the pan.

“Well, I thought dinner would come faster if I, you know, would throw in the spaghetti already, before the water was cooked, and then I think I might have, accidentally may I add, set a stick of spaghetti on fire thanks to the cooker, so I just panicked and I threw it in the pan and then everything started burning, and I just didn’t know what-”

“Take a breath, geez, you’re going to run out of oxygen on this rate.” I interrupted. Seden was almost hyperventilating at this point due to a lack of oxygen and the smokey air she was inhaling.

Carefully, I lifted the wet cover of the pan, which had cooled down completely, and peeked inside. Somehow, Seden managed to burn the insides of the pan black, with the occasional original color showing. From what I could see, the bottom was torched black as well, but my sight was blurred by the waft of smoke. I started coughing and immediately put the lid back on before the entire kitchen would be black from smoke. “Okay, so that-” I said, motioning to the ruined pan, “is uneadible. Do you guys mind takeout? Because this can’t be saved.”

Emeka and Seden both nodded, keeping the fabric of their clothes against their mouths. Sarah chose that moment to barge out of her room where she had stayed in oblivion of the disaster in the kitchen for the past few minutes. “Why do I smell smoke?” She asked incredulously.

“Believe it or not, Seden managed to set fire to water.” Emeka said, his voice laced with a mix between admiration and surprise. How someone can admire ones ability to set fire to water, I would forever question. But that wasn’t the point right now, because take out meant war in this house. Always.