"Kettle" - April 1, 2022

“The little steam engine rumbling above the open flame, pressure building as it aches to let out its piercing cry. An unpolished silver, dull from overuse, with a black plastic handle connected by steel arms to the body. She hovers over the stove, waiting for that moment when the kettle cries out, so she can swiftly pull it off the stove before it wakes her daughter. Pencil stuck through the ruffled, messy bun she put it up in as the summer air kissed her neck. Notepad by the stove, its wires pulled in different directions like a wiry mess of rebar left from a building torn down. She glances between it and the teapot, softly chewing at the hardened bits of skin around her cuticles, and the ticking of the secondhand making her feel the drop in her stomach more with every soft click, sounding more like the firing pin touching the barrel of a gun, locked and loaded. Her stomach churns like…