Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave XXIII - "The Embarrassment"

Audrey blew out the last few notes from her trumpet, the music drifting into the empty sky from the balcony outside her apartment. She let out a relaxed sigh as she finished. “Nothing like some trumpet right as the sun starts to set to get in the mood.”

Esther, standing next to her, didn’t understand. “In the mood?”

Audrey grinned and motioned with a hand. “There’s no chancing romancing with a blue attitude, you’ve got to hear some music to get in the mood!” She waved to the neighboring courtyards and apartments. “For life...and for a one-minute burrito!”

“I see...” Esther said, not seeing. “But, um, I’m glad you still play the trumpet. I didn’t know you kept up with it.”

“Always!” Audrey pretended her trumpet was a guitar, windmilling her arm at the end of an air solo. “You can’t have a big band without a trumpet!”

“You’re in a big band?”

Audrey nodded. “Me on trumpet, Demetrius on drums, and Samuel on saxophone!”

“...you can’t have a big band without at least ten people, Sis...”

“Ah, nuts to the rules!” Audrey blew out another note. “You can’t have a band without heart, either, and we have plenty of that!” Her stomach rumbled. “And plenty of hunger. It’s burrito time!”

Audrey led the way back into the apartment, leaving the late evening behind them as Esther shut the door. Audrey set the trumpet down on the counter and turned the dial on her radio until it arrived at, of course, a big band station, then went fishing around in her icebox.

“Huh...” Audrey mumbled as she pushed around bags of carrots. “We got no burritos, Esther! What a tragedy!”

Esther sat down on a stool next to the Audrey's counter. “I can head down to the local store and grab some, if you’d like.”

“That’s alright, I got a secret weapon!” Audrey reached into a nearby drawer and produced a lanyard with a key attached to the end of it. “I’ll take a dear donation from our dear friend Isaac.”

Esther eyed the lanyard. “Does Isaac know you have a key to his apartment?”

“Of course! I’m not a sicko,” Audrey said. “Isaac’s paranoid he’d be locked out of his own apartment, so he gave me a spare key. Of course, I’ve never seen him ever forget his keys. He has the whole routine where he has to check the sink and the stove and lights before he leaves. So, he always has his keys on him.”

Esther looked a little concerned. “...does he know you take his food?”

Audrey gave a cheeky grin. “Isaac’s naivety is his best part. He’s half-convinced someone’s been living in the walls of his apartment, stealing his burritos, peas out of a bag, a...bobblehead...or two...or some of those crackers, you know the kind of crackers I’m talking about? The one that’s white and really salty.”

“I don’t eat crackers, Sis. They have a high level of sodium. And maybe habitual stealing isn’t the best thing...”

Audrey waved away her concerns. “Ah, Isaac gets to live next to a gorgeous neighbor like yours truly, that more than makes up for it!”

Audrey realized Esther’s attention was somewhere else. Her eyes were on the trumpet, resting on Audrey’s counter.

“You like my playing?” Audrey asked.

Esther realized she got lost in her thoughts. “Yes, it was really nice. It makes me feel like...” Esther couldn’t describe the emotion in her. She wasn’t particular good at things at like that. “I don’t know what this feeling is,” she admitted.

Audrey placed a hand full of wisdom on her shoulder. “Well, what does it make you think of?”

Esther collected her thoughts. “It’s like...it reminds me of Salem Slot, when you played the trumpet each morning after you running up the flags.”

Audrey sat down on the stool next to her. “Oh, wasn’t that the best? Every morning, every night, the New England and Belarusian flags, up and down, right in front of the house, gently lapping in the wind!” She let out a fond sigh. “It makes me nostalgic.”

“Um...what’s that mean?”

Audrey raised a finger in faux-sageness. “It’s what you’re feeling right now, thinking of the Slot. Nostalgia can be a very powerful emotion.”

Emotions rarely came up in Esther’s studies. They never tended to fit neatly into easy-to-understand boxes.

“I...don’t really get it."

“It’s when you remember times the old days. Sentimentaltality.”

“Um...I think it’s just sentimental...”

Audrey was lost in her dreams of the past. “Oh, don’t you remember the Slot? Those times of yesteryear when things seemed so simple, when up was up and down was down and there was no care in the world. You ever think about nights walking your bike back home with your friends under the streetlights as sunset turns into twilight?”

Esther did not walk her bike back home with her friends under the streetlights as sunset turned into twilight. In Salem Slot – well, it still applied to Narragansett now, but definitely to Salem Slot back then - she didn’t know how to ride a bike, she didn’t have friends, and she rarely went outside.

Esther never really thought about Salem Slot anyway. So, spurred on by the sight of the trumpet and Audrey’s playing, Esther really gave her old town some serious thought for the first time since arriving in Elizabeth Pond. She was surprised at the memory that first came to her: a hot summer day, around noontime, reading yet another novel from the local library, taking a long sip from her glass of the iced tea Audrey brought home with her. The hum of cicadas made young Esther look outside, catching a glance of a patrol plane in the blue high above the power lines; much closer to her were the tomato plants she found herself taking care of (they were Audrey’s, but Audrey was rarely home to take care of them). Through her window, she caught a glimpse of sunflowers and magnolias, butterflies and bees, even the road that led up to their house on the hill.

Esther came back to the present. “Yeah...I think I understand what you mean now...”

Audrey chuckled while Esther gazed dreamily at somewhere just out of sight. “I’m getting some burritos,” Audrey told her, but Esther felt lost in an emotion she never had a name for beforehand. She barely registered Audrey leaving out the door, but that brought up a whole new host of memories, countless times where Audrey left through the door, off to work at the farms or the factory or wherever she was off to, sometimes for days or weeks at a time.

Home. Was that what Salem Slot was? Esther studied so hard when she lived there because she wanted to leave that small town, make her way to the capital where people could have a real life with a real education. She never paid any attention to the town while she was there, but now, she thought about all those accumulated unconscious things, the walk up the slight hill to their house, freckle-faced classmates at school, the dandelion wine and apple pie made by their neighbor that smelled and tasted like summer.

I just wanted to get out of there. So why do I miss it so much? It feels like...I could reach out to the old days, feel them in my hand, but it’ll slip away like sand through my fingers. I could sit here all day and think about the past...

The sound of Audrey returning and closing the door behind her made Esther slightly frown. But why? Why didn’t I like that? Audrey coming home...because it meant I wouldn’t have the house to myself anymore. It meant I had to talk to someone when all I wanted to do was study and read...did I miss her while she was gone? I think I did, but maybe I didn’t. I spent so much time thinking about myself and my own life that I never noticed anything else...

“Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing too, though,” Audrey said as she looked around the frozen burrito in her hand for the directions.

Dangerous?

Esther didn’t want to be pulled away from her reflection. “Why’s that?”

“If you think about the past too much, you lose sight of the present,” Audrey explained. “And being in the present is the most important thing out there. You can’t live in the past or future. Just the present. So you don’t want to waste it.”

Waste it...did I waste all that time in Salem Slot? That was the present once as well. Did I really live in it?

“And that’s the sort of darker side about this cultural stasis too,” Audrey said while reading the directions. “We’re stuck consuming Pre-Unleashing works from the Golden Age because it was a Golden Age. There were some things wrong with it, but the majority of people, at least in the First World, didn’t have to worry about war or starvation or revolution. That peace is reflected in the works of the time. I don’t think it really was all sunshine and roses, but the thing about nostalgia is that it washes away all the negatives so you only remember what was good.”

She started unwrapping the burrito. “All of those old media that’s popular nowadays, it’s like a nostalgia escape. You can forget about the problems of today by watching things from a peaceful time.”

“That’s escapism,” Esther realized.

“Oh, so they even got a word for it? People are so smart!” Audrey looked down at the unwrapped frozen burrito, ready for action. “But anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I hope people don’t lose sight of the present. I think the present’s pretty nice, all things considered. Like us, hanging out right now. That can only happen in the present.”

Esther felt another pang of loneliness and regret and wondered why.

Audrey held up the burrito in her hand. “Esther, in exactly one minute, we’ll have a two-minute burrito. Just as modern technology can destroy, it can create!”

Esther stood up and arrived next to Audrey in the kitchen. They both peered down at the slick, black New York Minute.

“Just be careful, Sis.”

“Of course! Careful is my middle name!”

“It’s Anzhela...”

“Don’t worry about it!”

Audrey pressed the button and the microwave door opened on its own. She pulled the door all the way back, savoring the sight of the little rotating plate thing inside, illuminated by an internal overhead light. She carefully inserted a plate with the unwrapped burrito on top. With baited breath, Esther watched as Audrey closed the microwave door, sealing all of their fates.

“Carefully-controlled burst,” Audrey told herself, remembering the instructions given to her by that nice man in the alleyway she bought the microwave from. She turned the dial, letting Rddhi build up in her hands all the while.

Things moved fast. The dial reached the minute mark. Audrey let go of the dial and the microwave came to life, bathing the burrito inside with, well, microwaves. Audrey then let the Rddhi in her hands burst out, enveloping the microwave in energy.

The New York Minute immediately caught on fire.

“Hmm, is the fire the reason why it only takes a minute to cook?” Audrey wondered.

“It’s on fire!” Esther exclaimed. She immediately turned on the sink while Audrey frantically searched for a cup.

The microwave whirred and made noises similar to a firecracker. The Rddhi within it – Audrey's Rddhi – suddenly spiraled around the microwave, and the fire was eliminated. More than eliminated, in fact. It looked as though the microwave had never been on fire – no embers, no burn marks, just a sleek New York Minute.

The machine kept making methodically noises that thundered around the room. “Um...is this normal?” Esther asked.

Audrey gave her an uneasy look, and the girls watched the Rddhi spiral around the microwave faster and faster. “I, uh...I think we should get takeout instead,” Audrey mumbled. She pressed the open button. Nothing interesting happened.

Audrey jammed her finger into the open button over and over. The noises only grew louder.

Audrey pulled on the microwave door, but no dice for that either. “C’mon, open up-”

The microwave door opened, smacking Audrey across the face. She fell to the ground, dizzy. As Esther helped her up, the microwave spat out the burrito at her.

Audrey groaned from the impact of a hot-burrito across the face. “It’s haunted, Esther, haunted!” Audrey shouted. “Demon! Demon! Krampus!”

Audrey rose and stepped in front of Esther, Rddhi coursing up her arms. “We need to destroy it! We need to bring it back from whence it came-”

Two arms made of pure Rddhi exploded out of the microwave, grabbing Audrey and Esther by their throats. The arms threw them over the counter into the other side of Audrey’s room.

The two sisters groaned and rubbed the bruises forming on their bodies. The microwave then grew two legs of Rddhi and slid off the counter. After a few stumbling steps, it stood on two strong Rddhi legs at full height – taller than either sister.

Audrey shot a vine at it, but the New York Minute smacked it away with an arm.

Both sisters looked in fear at the newly-formed golem in their room. The microwave gazed back at them, whizzing and beeping, until it finally made a ding. It immediately punched Audrey’s door off its hinges and stepped into the outside world.

The Adzinokis scrambled after it. By the time they reached the balcony, they saw that the New York Minute had already jumped off. It ambled along across the courtyard, heading toward the avenue, towards Curley Park, towards Kenji Station and all the people there waiting for the train.

Esther and Audrey stood in mute astonishment on the apartment walkway. The Minute beeped, then let out a beam of Rddhi that vaporized a tree, knocking it to the ground. It then let out several more beams, destroying several light fixtures and blue mailboxes on the avenue.

Audrey shivered. “…what do you think we should, Esther?” she asked fearfully. She then noticed how tightly Esther gripped the railing, her knuckles almost white from exertion.

“What should we do?” Esther repeated. “What should we do!”

Audrey took a step back. “Esther, I’ve never heard you yell before…not since middle school-“

“Because I’ve avoided you as much as I could since middle school!”

Esther looked at Audrey angrily. “I told you countless times. Countless times! Just keep your head down and work hard and follow the rules! That’s how you succeed in life! Just work as hard you can and do good in school and ignore the trends and distractions! But no, every time, every single time, you never play things safe. You always think ‘oh, let’s do this, it’ll be mindless fun’ but it always, always blows up in your face. Then I have to fix things for you! Everyone has to fix things for you! Every time you reach a corner, you can never get out of yourself, you always need someone else!”

Audrey curled strands of blonde hair around a finger as she looked away. Isaac kept me from giving up in the sewers. Reed kept me from giving up in the Bay Mart. When have I ever kept myself from giving up?

“And you never learn!” Esther continued. “You never learn. I told you so many times back in Salem Slot. Just do the work and we’ll be okay. But you had to go off and have fun for three years, while I did all the work! And in the end, I was the one who got us out of there! Because I followed the rules and worked hard! When Mom and Dad left, someone needed to be in charge of us, and it should’ve been you because you’re the older one. But you’re so irresponsible that I had to do everything. And I got us out of there. Just me. Not you.”

Esther looked away towards the sunset over the city. “I don’t think of Salem Slot because I never liked living there. And still, even now, I’m embarrassed to be around you. That’s why I never see you at school or talk about you. I really thought you would’ve learned something while you were alone.”

Audrey wiped her eyes and weakly smiled.“Do you know what I’ve been doing for the past two years, Esther? I’ve been working hard so I could see you again. It could be really lonely at times. It made me realize that maybe I took you for granted, so I’m sorry.” She kept talking. “When we got to the Pond, I hoped things would get better for us. I always out while in the Slot, so I thought maybe things could be different now.”

She sighed. “You were at the Academy and I was at the Vocational school. We stopped talking, but I don’t blame you. I always knew you were embarrassed about me, about the things I do and say, or maybe it’s the things I didn’t do and don’t say, so I wanted to work hard so I wouldn't be an embarrassment. I spent so many hours studying, and it always made me feel proud of you because I never knew sitting in one place for so long could be so tough. When I transferred to the Academy in the middle of my first year, I heard you were a big Rddhi researcher now, so I thought, maybe she still thinks I’m an embarrassment. All I did was just get into a school, after all. So I decided I was gonna try to get Rddhi powers, too.”

Audrey held up her hand a brief spark of red ran through it. “I did all that meditating stuff and thinking hard and working out and all that so you wouldn’t think I was a failure. And, this past summer, I finally did it. I could use the Rddhi. But even then, a small part of me still thought you’d see me as an embarrassment. So I kept quiet until I heard the story of you getting attacked.”

The angry look in Esther’s eyes started to relent.

“I thought, what if I never see Esther again?” Audrey continued. “If I kept thinking that one day I’d see you in the future, I would never actually see you in the present. So embarrassment or not, I gave you a call, and though it took a few tries, I was so happy you agreed to hang out with me this weekend.”

Esther relaxed her grip on the railing and turned to face Audrey. Esther rarely spoke, so for the first time in her life, she truly realized that words carry weight with them.

“…Audrey-“

Audrey shook her head. “It’s ok. I understand. You’re your own person, you’re free to feel how you want. But just know I’ll always love you, no matter what you may think of me. I’ll always want you to succeed. And no matter how high up you are, just know…I’ll be there for you.”

Esther gingerly reached her hand out, but Audrey briskly walked away, heading for the stairs. “I’m gonna stop that thing, Esther. For once, I’ll save myself. Hold down the fort for me!”

Esther slowly brought her hand back down. She watched Audrey go.