Teach Me How to Love You Again
By: Jesse Ya Diul
Tags: Humor, Writing, Life, Immigration, Short Story

This was the best part of his day. This is what he looked forward to each day, his hour lunch break. He would sit, enjoy his food and think about happier times.

He would think of home, think of his family, of his life when he was a boy. He would reminisce on how much simpler life was back before he moved to this country.

For that hour he would get away from the tribulations of work, get away from the noise. For that hour he had his own corner of the world.

He had his life back.

But before that he had to conquer the microwave.

He took his newly bought Pyrex dish, which held his food, and placed it in the microwave.

He didn’t notice the fork still inside.

The microwave chirped at him as he opened the door. Closing it, he stared dumbly at the machine confused by all the buttons and pictures.

For a moment he wished for the old microwave. Back then it was only two buttons “Start” and “Stop” with numbers for the timer.

Defrost, deheat, reheat, recook. Dambele had no idea what these symbols meant.

Hesitating, he pressed “One” and hoped that it meant one minute. The microwave churned to life and he waited.

The pyrex plate twirled around like a ballerina. He stared at his reflection in the microwave. Looking back at him was a sad, tired, ancient body, with white hair, hunched over.

After about fifteen seconds, something popped in the microwave. The break room went silent. Everyone turned an eye to Dambele and the microwave, before warily continuing back to their conversations.

At the same time one of the managers came in, Bradley.

Bradley was a top director at the company. Handsome guy, fairly young and wore nice suits. Dambele liked him because even though he was a boss, he always made sure to say hi to everyone.

“Hey DB! What’s on the menu today?”

Dambele pointed at the microwave “Food from my country. My wife made it.”

Bradley smiled at Dambele.

“Smells good man. I might have to try some, your wife can’t keep spoiling you like this”

Dambele blushed at the showering of praise, slightly embarrassed but swelling with pride in his wife’s cooking.

There were twenty seconds left on the timer when Bradley walked out. As he left the breakroom, he looked into the microwave.

“Sure does smell good” he thought and walked out. Then he realized.

“Wait D did you leave your for-”

BOOOM

The microwave exploded, blowing Dambele back, throwing him against the wall, propelling him right out of his shoes.

People came rushing in to see what happened. They saw Dambele on the side of the wall.

His white hair was smoking, bewildered face charred, and his clothes slightly were burned.

Then they looked at the microwave and saw his food burned to a crisp, still smoking, and the fork he left, lying on the ground.

They all started laughing.

“Damn DB, you must really want that workers comp!!”

“Twenty years in and he finally had enough!!”

They laughed on the way out leaving Dambele alone.

He walked gingerly back to the microwave and looked at the mess. His food was ruined.

All that was left was a smoking pile of shit.

His last piece from home was gone.

And with it losing the only corner of the world he had left.