by Linnea Cooley

My brother and I gain the freedom to stay home alone a few years before we gain common sense. As soon as our parents shut the front door we rush downstairs to pop things in the microwave. My brother loves the mechanical hum of the microwave and I love observing his delight. A grape explodes into a ball of blue flame. A marshmallow Peep balloons into a behemoth, its lonely eyes staring back at us through the glass. When the spectacle is over we wipe down the microwave with a paper towel, careful to leave it empty and clean.

Linnea Cooley is a writer based in San Francisco. Her work appears in McSweeney’s, Pif Magazine, and The Museum of Americana, and in 2020 she was a finalist for the Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize. Her work can be found on her website, linneacooley.weebly.com. or by following her on twitter @linnea_cooley