Cuban Heat by Sam Smith

There was a three month period in my life where I would put something odd in the microwave once a day. I had just moved into my first place by myself, so I felt pretty free from rules. Mum would have never let me use the microwave for entertainment purposes. It was for cooking in her house. I used it to warm up my socks on a cold day a couple of times. I did the same with my pants once, but it’s quite hard to know how long pants need to be in the microwave to get them warm but not so hot that they burn some sensitive areas of my body. I have the scars to prove it.

Finding things to put in a microwave wasn’t too difficult. At first, I just looked around my flat, picking up old books and toys from boxes that Mum forced me to take because they were taking up room in her house. Books don’t really do much unless you leave them in there for a long time, then they start burning in a weird way. All the pages curl up and darken. When you take it out, the middle pages are sort of soggy. Toys just melt if they’re made of plastic. Not as dramatic as I thought it would be as a child.

Soon, I started to run out of stuff and I started to steal things just to microwave them. Beer mats, potted plants, sandwiches, fancy Cuban cigars from some prick at a club, hats, oranges. All sorts of rubbish. It taught me a valuable lesson. Everything reacts when it’s exposed to enough heat. I started to apply this theory to situations in life. I argued more with people, stared at them until they felt uncomfortable, shouted every once in a while to see what would happen. It was a strange time in my life.

The novelty of putting things in the microwave eventually wore off when someone complained about the smell of burning plastic coming from my flat. I guess they thought I was making bombs or something because they rang the police, whom swiftly turned up at my door. They shouted at me to get on the ground. I reacted. Currently I am serving a five year sentence for throwing molten plastic at a police officer. Prison is no fun.