oh dear i just nuked a little bug. and on purpose too that was why it was so horrifying. i’m a monster.
my decision was made within a span of a nanosecond or two so there was no time for rationality to really stop me. i had opened the microwave to heat something up and there was a spindly little bug darting frantically around. i didn’t even really think about it but i shut the door and pushed start.
it was at that moment that i realized the horror of what i was doing. for the first second i could still see the bug darting across the surface. i was paralyzed, it’s like that god-awful dread when you’ve started doing something terribly evil and you feel doomed but it’s too late to turn around. what happens when you microwave a live being? was it going to explode in there? or spontaneously combust? was i going to open the door and find a melted puddle of radioactive waste where the bug was? was it feeling agony and pain while the waves lasered its poor little helpless body?
all of these thoughts were going through my head, and in the background of course was not just the sound of the microwave but also my speakers blaring a beautiful tragic anti-war song called Baby’s in Baghdad that we recently recorded for our new album…of all things. what a mess. i found myself paralyzed with my finger resting on the stop button but me just staring troubled at the counter and feeling a lump in my throat when i swallowed. if i turned it off now, the bug might still be alive and writhing and that would be even worse. so i should just make sure the job is done. 🙁 after 15 seconds i opened it. there was the smell of something burning, and a smoking black glob of burnt stuff in the back of the microwave. at once i felt disgust and almost felt like crying. then i made some quick mental connections and realized to my silent lonely relief that it was actually just some piece of food that was torched beyond recognition simply because the microwave had nothing else in there to fry.
the little bug was just on its back like a dead mosquito. it couldn’t have been that bad for it right? i cleaned it up, then heated my food up and thought of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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