Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave XIII - "Easy Like Sunday Morning"
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“Just think about it,” Reed exclaimed on a fine Sunday morning. “There was a time before any of us were here. Like humans, I mean. You know who ran the world? Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, Isaac. You got the T-Rex and the stegosaurus and the triceratops, you got those long neck guys, you got the little raptors. Imagine if they learned how to farm, Isaac. They’d be unstoppable. Dinosaurs would’ve won and we’d still be mole-people. Or maybe we’d be dinosaurs. Imagine that. Dinosaurs in their dinosaur cars, going to their dinosaur jobs. Going to dinosaur sub shops and dinosaur clubs. Can you imagine what dinosaur music would sound like? Could a dinosaur play the piano? They’d probably have to invent instruments specifically suited for dinosaur hands. You ever think about that? The only reason we have pianos is because of a meteor sixty-five million years ago...”
Isaac let her drone on and on. It was the typical early morning after sleeping somewhere that’s not your usual bed. You wake up a little early, your quality of sleep isn’t quite as good as it usually is, and you just kind want to lay around, maybe watch some television.
Their room in the dojo didn’t have a television though, so Isaac kept laying in his pile of sheets and listened as Reed rambled on about whatever came to her mind at the moment as she laid on the pullout couch, slightly above him so they couldn’t see quite each other. Not that it stopped them, though. Reed did most of the talking that morning; she seemed to be talking an awful lot, even for Reed, an absolutely notorious rambler.
Isaac squinted his eyes and saw the answer. From his angle on the floor, he could just make out a wafty-looking cloud of smoke trailing upwards from where Reed was laying.
Isaac sat up so he’d be level with Reed. She laid casually on the pullout bed, one arm behind her head, one leg crossed over the other, twirling something black around in her hand.
Reed noticed him and smiled cheekily. “Dopamine Rusher, Isaac. Nothing quite like it.”
“It’s 9:30 in the morning,” Isaac said dryly.
“No better time. Sleep all night, first inhale of the day. Goes down real smooth.” As if to demonstrate, she plugged the rusher into one of her nostrils, took a long inhale, and then let the smoke drift out of her mouth. She smiled at Isaac again. “Easy like Sunday morning.”
“I’m pretty sure that stuff rots your brain or something,” Isaac said.
Reed tapped her head. “You got a brain as big as mine, it takes a lot more than this to kill it.” She held the Rusher out to Isaac, but Isaac respectfully declined.
Reed put the Rusher away. “I’m hungry,” she declared. She yawned and stretched her small frame out across the bed. “We got leftovers, right?”
“We ate all the pizza,” Isaac reminded her. “And I have leftovers from the ramen shop. Not we.”
Reed leaned over the side of the bed and gazed down at him. “Aw, Isaac, you’re killing me.”
“I told you last night not to eat it all,” Isaac said. “Life has consequences sometimes.”
Reed looked at him dryly and laid back down. “You’re a goddamn mood-killer, Isaac.”
“I’m real ruthless like that.” Isaac stood up and stretched, enjoying the light that managed to make its way through the thin sliding doors to the garden. He scratched his stomach and sauntered over to a nearby small, circular table, leftover beef fried rice waiting for him in a brown paper bag.
Reed realized something. “You didn’t put it in the fridge?”
“No, why would I why?”
“You’re just gonna eat food that’s been left out like that?”
Isaac nodded and sat in a chair at the table. “Best way to eat it. Anything day old, it gives it time for the flavor to come out. Wish we had some pizza left. Sunday morning leftover pizza...that’s the stuff.”
Reed let out an amused exhale and slid out of bed. She wobbled a little, then made her way over to Isaac, standing next to him.
“Don’t think you think this is a little unfair?” Reed asked, her mouth starting to water. “I paid for dinner last night. So these leftovers are technically mine. Hell, you purposely ordered this just to take it home. So it’s not even technically dinner which means that I paid for it because...?”
Isaac found the fork he specifically left next to his leftovers last night just so he wouldn’t have to get one in the morning. “Because you’re Hibiscus Reed, friend to the poor, with a generosity that might earn you a sainthood one day. And also because I offered to pay for this and you said no, Isaac, since you’re so cool, I don’t mind paying.”
Reed rolled her eyes. “Half of those are just blatant lies. And I guess I got carried away. I was singing that song in my head all night. I wasn’t in the right mindset, Isaac. You took advantage of poor little Reed.”
“In your dreams,” Isaac said as he pulled the box of fried rice out and smiled as he opened it, revealing a full thing of leftovers waiting for him.
Reed pulled out the table’s other chair and sat across from him. Isaac was content with eating and listening to her speak, but he suddenly noticed a cloud of smoke over his food.
“Your heartless, you know that?” Isaac asked her.
Reed spun the Rusher and then put it away. “There’s no television, you’re eating so won’t be able to speak that much, I guess I could keep talking, but I just did that. What else is there to do?”
“I don’t know. Enjoy a Sunday morning.”
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“Oh, I am, Isaac.”
“Maybe in a particular way that doesn’t throw a cloud over my rice.”
Reed slumped down on the table in defeat. “Alright, fair enough. Won’t happen again, boss.”
Isaac fished around in the bag and pulled out something that made Reed’s mouth water once again.
Reed looked at it hungrily. “A fortune cookie? For me?”
Isaac laughed. “No way. I was just pulling it out to show you that I had one. I’ll let you have the fortune, though.”
“I can’t eat the fortune.”
“That’s unfortunate.” After taking the cookie out of the plastic wrapper, Isaac broke the cookie in two. He handed the small slip of paper inside over to Reed.
“Forgiveness is divine,” Reed read aloud. “But never pay full price for a late pizza.” She looked back up at Isaac. “What’s that mean?”
Isaac shrugged. “That’s the beauty of fortune cookies. You make your own meaning for it.”
Reed handed the paper back over to Isaac. “I can’t stand it when people say one thing and really mean another.”
Isaac guffawed. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Hey, there’s a difference between lying and metaphors,” Reed said. “When you lie, you say A, when B really happened. But A never implies anything about a B. But with metaphors, when you say A, you really mean B, and it’s up to me to figure out what B means. I hate that. Just tell it to me straight.”
“His feet were ice cubes,” Isaac said, recalling the most basic example of a metaphor from the New England elementary school curriculum.
“That’s what I mean,” Reed said, emphasizing her point with a raised finger. “Just say that he’s cold. It’s that simple.”
Isaac grinned. “All this talk about hating metaphors...isn’t that probably a metaphor for something deeper?”
Reed crossed her arms, then chuckled. “Suppose you got a point.”
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About half an hour later, they made their way downstairs to the dojo’s kitchen, Reed praying that Domino made them breakfast (he actually did make a damn fine shepherd’s pie, after all). When they got to the kitchen, they found Domino sitting at the table, clad in a flannel bathrobe and slippers, a newspaper in his hands, smoke from a cup of hot coffee drifting upwards next to him.
“Ah, my favorite pair of disciples,” Domino greeted, setting the paper down. Isaac briefly glanced at the headline – IBERIA MAKES COMMON CAUSE WITH CENTRIPETALIST EAST AFRICA AGAINST NIGERIA. Isaac wanted to ask about the article, but Reed already spoke.
“Where’s breakfast?” she asked, her stomach rumbling.
Domino raised an eyebrow. “You expected breakfast? In a real dojo, the disciples make food for the elders.”
“Do they really?” Isaac asked.
Domino eyed him. “...no. At the Wachusett Sect, we had cooks.” He raised a finger. “But I did help clean up after, I’ll have you know.”
“But doesn’t help me now, Sensei,” Reed complained, looking through his fridge.
“You won’t find any leftovers,” Domino told her. “Yours truly already ate them.”
Reed grunted and closed the fridge door in defeat.
“Check my icebox,” Domino said. Enthusiasm rose in his voice. “Actually, that’s an order from your sensei. Check the icebox, I got something I want to show you.”
Reed opened the box. “Frozen pizzas, frozen peas, burritos,” she observed dryly.
“Get the burritos!” Domino hurriedly rose from his seat as Reed took a few out of the icebox.
In his slippers, Domino slid over to a kitchen counter, which featured a black, sleek microwave. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.
Isaac recognized it from Audrey’s. “That looks like a New York Minute-”
“It’s a New York Minute!” Domino interrupted. He pushed a button and the door swung open. “It makes a two minute burrito...in one minute! When I was a kid, all we had to eat was bread made from the village granary. Around Christmastime, it was even sliced! That’s all we had, that and the salted fish that survived the journey from the coast to Wiltshire. Oh, those were the days...”
Isaac nudged Reed awake. Reed, happy to have any sort of food, placed the unwrapped burrito in the microwave.
“You see, the trick to the microwave is simple, but easy to mess up,” Domino explained as he turned a few dials. As the microwave started up, he closed his eyes and placed his palms on the machine, Red Rddhi slowly trickling out of his hands, engulfing the machine in glowing light. “Some people think you have to apply the Rddhi all at once. They think an initial burst of overwhelming force right at the start is what shaves that minute off. But it’s not force, it’s finesse. You have to apply a gentle amount of Rddhi, just the right amount of light force, that gradually shaves that minute off, until right when the first minute is complete-”
The microwave dinged and Domino removed his palms. He opened the door, and inside was a freshly cooked two-minute burrito, made in a single minute.
Isaac looked over at Reed. “Finesse, huh...”
Reed nodded in agreement.
Domino smiled. “Sounds like you two have some sort of understanding about finesse. That reminds me. Say, Isaac, how was the pullout?”
Isaac shrugged. “I let Reed have it.”
Domino choked. “Isaac...you didn’t use the pullout?”
Reed nodded. “I enjoyed it.”
Domino looked back and forth between them, sweating. “You two...but you’re kids...the creation of life is something sacred...” His eyes widened. “And to think something so sacred happened in this very dojo!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Reed asked, putting the burrito on a plate. “It’s a couch that can turn into a bed. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t life-changing.”
“Yeah, I’ve slept on a few pullouts before, this one looked nice but nothing too crazy,” Isaac added.
The light in Domino’s eyes went out. “Oh yeah, the pullout couch...of course...”
He sat back down and slumped in his seat.
“By the way, after this burrito, you want to head home?” Isaac asked Reed.
“It’s not even noon yet,” Reed said, taking a seat at the table.
“But the VHS tape is due today,” Isaac reminded her.
Reed waved him away. “You said to enjoy the Sunday morning, remember?” She gestured at her plate. “Let me enjoy it in a particular way that doesn’t involve you throwing a cloud over my burrito. Yeah, you like that? I’m good with metaphors and turning people’s words on them like that.”
Isaac shook his head and sighed.
“If you kids are staying for a little longer, let me show you my koi pond,” Domino said.
“I don’t like koi,” Isaac supposed. “They can grow as big as they want if the container is big enough. I don’t like stuff like that. Same thing with big plants. Leaves shouldn’t be as big as my head. It’s unnatural, or maybe so natural that it becomes unnatural.”
Domino and Reed looked at each other, then started laughing. Reed slammed her hand on the table a few times while Domino clutched his stomach.
Isaac shook his head again. “Fine, I’ll see your koi pond. But after that, let’s go home.”
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War!
Some time later, Isaac, Reed, and Domino observed the koi pond. Surrounded by trees and colorful bushes full of their last flowers before the autumn freeze took them, the koi pond looked calm and quaint, a few orange and white fish swimming about.
“While we’re here, I got a little nature trail that leads out of here,” Domino realized. “Let me show you guys that.”
Reed threw a piece of bread in the pond.
“That’s for ducks,” Domino told her. “Fish don’t eat bread. And where’d you get that slice of bread in the first place?”
Reed shrugged. “I have my ways. Let’s go see your nature trail.”
Isaac swallowed and relented. “Fine, let’s see the nature trail. But after that, let’s go home.”
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Huh!
Some time later, the three were in the firing range behind the training ground. Reed gripped the burp gun in her hands tightly, sweating a little.
“Just let it rip!” Isaac exclaimed while Domino cheered.
Reed swallowed and pulled the trigger. Her mouth opened in surprise from the force of the recoil as a drum barrel full of bullets emptied itself into an assortment of aluminum cans on the other side of the range. She started laughing, full of exhilaration, full of power, as the gun rattled off in her hands.
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Yeah!
Some time later, Isaac and Reed faced each other, standing at either end of the sparring arena within the training grounds.
They both grinned, ready for the match.
Domino looked back and forth, excited to see the fireworks.