My Favourite Thing
Fiction by Melia Kootnikoff
The Kitchen by James McNeill Whistler, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
My favourite thing is my microwave. We keep it in our kitchen. Mom calls it cluttered and too small. I like our dusty pots and pans. I try to stack them tall like a Jenga tower. My school counsellor makes us play Jenga. I think he tries too hard. I love the microwave so much because it's the best chef, like one of those yelling dudes from the cooking channel. We keep it in the living room, which is also the kitchen, but it’s the living room. I have to stop the timer before it beeps. I pretend it’s a bomb. Except the bomb is my mom in the other room. She likes to sleep. She says sleeping is medicine. I made us frozen burritos tonight, but they were cold in the middle. Mom didn’t eat hers. I think it’s because she’s cold in the middle. I wish I could make her happy. But not even microwaves can prevent the middle from getting cold, and microwaves are awesome.
Melia Kootnikoff is in her second year in the Associate of Arts program at Selkirk College. She has been an artist all her life and has recently fallen in love with writing. She is forever grateful to be travelling on this space rock, creating art stuff.