A Small Oven With One Burner Up Top

The apartment was small - tiny actually - but Andrew didn't mind.

He didn't need much. He had downsized his surroundings to match the downsizing of his life.

It all started out big enough. A college education, respectable job, marriage, a house, kids - he did as he was asked. Gardens wither if you don't tend to them; life is the same.

The marriage died first. High volume arguments replaced kisses, silence replaced high volume arguments, divorce replaced marriage. It was a slow, torturous road, and one that closed off part of Andrew's heart.

The kids eventually hated him, hated his negativity and despair. They got out as soon as they could. Never visited, never called. Birthday cards were sporadic and devoid of emotion.

They forgot him but he was unable to forget them. The pain was enormous.

Andrew poured himself another beer, and three fingers whiskey to soothe his ravaged soul. Looked around the apartment. One twin bed. A nightstand. An aged and abused recliner with a cheap tray table next to it. A small closet with 2 pair of pants, 1 pair of sweatpants, 4 shirts, a sweatshirt, a worn spring jacket and a faded pea coat and 9 empty hangers.

One ground level window through which he could look up to a dirt front yard, and feet walking by to genuine destinations.

A small oven with one burner up top. This was what Andrew fixated on in moments of crushing depression.

He used to love cooking for his family. He was good at it. He was creative. Andrew made his kids laugh when he was in the kitchen. It was the only time he felt free to reveal his inner self. His essence.

He lost the job - a good-paying job - because he called out sick too often, and showed up drunk from time to time. From $135,000 a year to what he lived on now - $16 an hour. That, and a heaping helping of contempt from co-workers and former friends. His ego would be bruised if he had an ego, but that had been downsized too. Obliterated, actually.

Andrew lost the house when he lost the job. You can only lie so much to a mortgage company - there's no room for empathy on a balance sheet. Fortunately for his wife (not that Andrew cared) she could support herself quite well and did not give a damn about the house. She had moved out years ago. She was happy about the foreclosure, though. She loved to see Andrew suffer.

He was getting hungry. He looked at the small oven with one burner up top and thought about the gourmet meal he could whip up on a real stove. But what was the point? It did not take much anymore to kill his hunger. He grabbed a small pan, dumped a can of no name beans with brown sugar and onions into it, sliced up two hot dogs into the mix, placed the pan on the burner and turned it up.

He rarely used the oven.

Andrew wanted to take a baseball bat to his small oven with one burner up top. Thought about it a lot. But he knew he never would.

He believed his kids might stop by unannounced one day. And he would cook them a nice meal.

He would make them laugh.