[UNMODERATED - player memory] [CRITERIA: 3 replies per player minimum]
Someone’s arguing next door, muffled voices rising in anger behind paper thin walls, but Kermie isn’t worried about them. He’s in a kitchen, surrounded by food smells. It’s warm and it’s clean and it’s comfortable, and it feels so big to his six-year-old eyes. He spins through the room, arms out, soaking it all in.
There’s a grubby little stove against the wall by the door, every burner firing. The sound of onions sizzling fills the room, while a deep pot boils away, and he wants to know what’s in there. The kitchen table is already overloaded with foil-covered dishes and steaming tupperware and Kermie’s never seen this much food in his life, how can there possibly be more?
A gray-haired woman in a floral apron paces the living room behind Kermie, chatting amiably on the phone in what’s probably Polish, but he pays her no mind as he grabs a chair from the table and drags it over to the stove. No one’s ever told him to watch out for hot stoves before. No one’s ever really cooked for Kermie before. That’s okay, he can use the microwave! But boy would he like to eat like this sometimes.
Kermie clambers up on the chair and leans over the pot while the skillet spits oil and butter just beside him. Little pockets of dough sit in the boiling water, a few of them bobbing along the surface as the water roils. His eyes go wide, because Kermie doesn’t know what these are but they look delicious, and he reaches into the pot to take one. No one’s ever told Kermie not to take things without permission. In fact, sometimes his mother encourages it and he’ll do anything to make her proud.
Before Kermie can douse his hand in hot water, the pierogies in the pot begin to swirl, twisting up, up, and up out of the water. He counts the little dumplings as they float—one, two, three, four, five, dancing around his arm. He doesn’t know how this is happening, he doesn’t know that this is magic or even that it’s out of the ordinary, but boy is this cool.
The voice in Polish gets louder, closer, right behind him as she sweeps into the kitchen. Kermie jumps, shouts, the pierogies orbiting his arm jump and splash back down toward the water, and everything freezes.
“Oh, resourceful are you?” the Polish woman scolds, but there’s no anger. She scoops Kermie up and drops him back on the ground, pushing the chair back toward the table with the casual air of someone who’s had to shoo many mischievous children from the kitchen.
“What are those things?” Kermie asks in awe as the woman pokes at the pot with a wooden spoon. “How did they dance?”
“They’re called pierogies, little frog, and they’re dancing because they’re almost done.” She spins from the stove and smiles down at him, a moment that fills his veins with something warm and bubbly. “I will get you one that is for real done, and they will make you dance instead.”
As the woman forks a pierogi from a container onto a plate for Kermie, the apartment door just behind them pops open. On the other side of the door, something glows blue.
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peckenpaugh2020-06-01 11:18 am
MEMORY: A Feast
[CRITERIA: 3 replies per player minimum]
Someone’s arguing next door, muffled voices rising in anger behind paper thin walls, but Kermie isn’t worried about them. He’s in a kitchen, surrounded by food smells. It’s warm and it’s clean and it’s comfortable, and it feels so big to his six-year-old eyes. He spins through the room, arms out, soaking it all in.
There’s a grubby little stove against the wall by the door, every burner firing. The sound of onions sizzling fills the room, while a deep pot boils away, and he wants to know what’s in there. The kitchen table is already overloaded with foil-covered dishes and steaming tupperware and Kermie’s never seen this much food in his life, how can there possibly be more?
A gray-haired woman in a floral apron paces the living room behind Kermie, chatting amiably on the phone in what’s probably Polish, but he pays her no mind as he grabs a chair from the table and drags it over to the stove. No one’s ever told him to watch out for hot stoves before. No one’s ever really cooked for Kermie before. That’s okay, he can use the microwave! But boy would he like to eat like this sometimes.
Kermie clambers up on the chair and leans over the pot while the skillet spits oil and butter just beside him. Little pockets of dough sit in the boiling water, a few of them bobbing along the surface as the water roils. His eyes go wide, because Kermie doesn’t know what these are but they look delicious, and he reaches into the pot to take one. No one’s ever told Kermie not to take things without permission. In fact, sometimes his mother encourages it and he’ll do anything to make her proud.
Before Kermie can douse his hand in hot water, the pierogies in the pot begin to swirl, twisting up, up, and up out of the water. He counts the little dumplings as they float—one, two, three, four, five, dancing around his arm. He doesn’t know how this is happening, he doesn’t know that this is magic or even that it’s out of the ordinary, but boy is this cool.
The voice in Polish gets louder, closer, right behind him as she sweeps into the kitchen. Kermie jumps, shouts, the pierogies orbiting his arm jump and splash back down toward the water, and everything freezes.
MEMORY: A Feast
“What are those things?” Kermie asks in awe as the woman pokes at the pot with a wooden spoon. “How did they dance?”
“They’re called pierogies, little frog, and they’re dancing because they’re almost done.” She spins from the stove and smiles down at him, a moment that fills his veins with something warm and bubbly. “I will get you one that is for real done, and they will make you dance instead.”
As the woman forks a pierogi from a container onto a plate for Kermie, the apartment door just behind them pops open. On the other side of the door, something glows blue.