Dirty Ovens

Lydia Price fluttered her eyes as the sunlight peaked through the lilac curtains into her bedroom. It was morning; time to get up…well, five more minutes of glorious sleep couldn’t hurt, could it? She lowered her eyelids and was about to drift off into her magnificent dream world until she heard someone shout something. She snapped open her eyes; quickly jumped out of bed; put on her fluffy, shocking pink dressing gown and ran down her winding, wooden staircase.

The voice shouted, only this time she heard the words: “Pri-ice, Pricey, are you here-ere?” The teasing voice seemed to be proverbial. Must be a coincidence. “Liddy, don’t keep me waiting. You love me, you just don’t know it.”

The voice was coming from the kitchen. Lydia slowly walked towards it, giving her baseball bat that she took from the cupboard under the stairs a tight squeeze. “Who…who are you?”

“You know who am, sweetie,” the voice cried in an irritating shrill.

Lydia entered the kitchen; her guard up and ready strike someone who might jump at her. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Nobody was there and there wasn’t a sound apart from her cold feet stepping on the freezing, brown tiles. “Is anyone there?” she asked nervously.

“I’m over here!” someone hollered from behind her.

Lydia automatically looked behind her. Nothing, again. Only the door. “Don’t play tricks on me,” she said, trying to hide her fear. It was pretty obvious that she was terrified, even though she was supposed to be a very good actor. Her heart was racing; her palms were sweating and she felt queasy because of all her worrying.

“Silly girl, you know I can throw my voice,” it said, slightly chuckling. It began to chant: “Silly Pricey, silly Pricey, silly Pri-“

“Shut up!” Lydia screeched.

“Aww, is Pricey stressed?” it asked in a mocking tone. “I’d hug you…only, I don’t have any arms.”

Lydia’s eyes became as wide as saucers. He’s…or she’s…or even they’re only kidding, she reasoned. Besides, what could it be, a monster? Pfft! Monsters don’t exist, only imaginations to make them up. “Ha…ha,” she said, trying to make her tone sarcastic.

“Don’t laugh, you know how it hurts…you,” it added evilly, “I can make your life a nightmare in seconds. After all, I can multiply.”

What? What does this…thing mean? Multiply, hah! “I think you’ve got the wrong house. The witch lives next door,” she joked.

“Don’t you remember me? I feel so unloved. I’m next to you, you know.”

Lydia immediately spun round to her right-hand side. All there was was her filthy, grimy, black oven. Well…it was black now; it used to be a dark shade of green. There was also a loaf of bread on it, how did that get out of the freezer? Weird. She strolled over to it and her eyes widened in surprise. “You,” she spat, trying to hide her horror.

“Yep, it’s me all right,” the bread replied. Its black tail wagged, it made sure that Lydia was annoyed by its wagging by almost hitting her in the face with it.

“I thought I got rid of you,” she snapped, almost grabbing its greasy tail in irritation.

“I’m like obesity, Liddy, I won’t leave yah for long,” it ridiculed.

“I am not overweight,” Lydia hissed.

“Keep telling yourself that, fatty,” it tormented.

Lydia gave the so-called bread a proper glance. It had green hexagons all over where the crust was; it had a greasy, slimy, raven black tail that liked to swish whenever the bread was excited. Its face looked like a slice of brown bread, with colourless eyes and a massive mouth, whenever the thing smiled it showed a pair of sharp, yellow fangs.

“So,” she began, quickly changing the subject, “where have you been? I thought you were gone for good.”

“Barcelona, Pricey,” it retorted.

“But I was positive I got rid of you!” Lydia cried out in frustration.

“You almost did,” the strange looking loaf of bread replied. It smirked. “I mean, you running in out of your kitchen with only your underwear on was pretty scary, I still have nightmares from it.” It paused. “So, did you miss me?”

“Did I miss you?” Lydia shrieked. “You are the most irritating, annoying and hideous thing on the planet. You are noisy next-door neighbours. You are the speck of dust that tickles a sneeze. You are the wrongly set alarm clock. Of course I didn’t miss you, why did you ever think that?”

“Sorry, can you repeat that, I was too busy eating,” it said, licking the grubby oven door with its slimy, blue tongue.

“Never mind,” Lydia muttered. She changed the subject again, hoping that she might become fond of the disgusting creature, but she found that very unlikely, “How was Barcelona…what is your name?”

“Bar-Bar,” it – Bar-Bar – responded. “And Barcelona was fantastic, thank you. There were lots of other Bar-Bars and Bah-Bahs, but none of them were nearly as well fed as me.”

“Well fed?” Lydia raised an eyebrow. At one time if she was talking to Bar-Bar inside she was screaming, trying to rip her skin off, how could she try to be decent to that…thing? The very mention of it made her want to commit suicide. But now, her attitude to him/her was different. What was so bad about it? It didn’t seem that bad now.

“Yeah, your oven is the dirtiest of them all, thanks Liddy!” Bar-Bar said.

“What are Bah-Bahs?” Liddy – Lydia – asked.

“The female Bar-Bars,” Bar-Bar quickly answered.

“Ah,” Lydia mumbled. “I’m going back to bed, there’s no work today. I got it wrong.” So off she went, going to a place without worries or regrets…to bad it didn’t last for long…

***

Crash!

The sound pounded through Lydia’s ears. Once again, she got quickly dressed with the usual gear and went downstairs. She had heard where the boom had come from the kitchen…again. “Bar-Bar, what happened?” she enquired. Lydia heard a disgusting, evil cackle. She gulped and slammed the door open.

“Nothing, everything’s fine,” Bar-Bar answered back. “You go back to sleep.”

But Lydia saw with her own brilliant green eyes that everything was not fine. The muddy brown jars that were neatly in their own place were scattered everywhere around floor, some of the glass was broken. There were bits of food all over the place, mostly on the floor and the recently painted walls. The cupboards were open and the pots and pans were either waiting patiently to be cleaned or were destroyed by Bar-Bar. She tried to blink back tears. Her kitchen…her lovely kitchen that she had spent years labouring over was ruined…gone. All that work she had put into it and now it was all just a memory.

Now she remembered why she hated that…it doesn’t deserve to be called an ‘it’ or a ‘thing’ that would be complimenting the wicked being. Bar-Bar did this before, the revolting creature laughed when she would try clean her kitchen. When she looked away, the impious bread would ooze concoctions of creepy, olive green liquid out of its hexagons. More work. She cried and cried herself to sleep back then. How could anything be so cruel? How could such a thing even exist? Lydia remembered when she tried to put the oven on to try bake that mouldy bread to a crisp. Nothing happened -- the fire did not damage it. Then it cried: "Let´s see how you like it!" and breathed fire out of its moth. Lydia ran out of the kitchen in terror.

Right now, her large eyes widened at realisation. She had plan…and there was nothing that anybody could do to stop her…

***

Lydia opened the door quietly, seeing that the kitchen she had left was as dirty as ever. Not for long, though. Soon Bar-Bar will be gone forever. She crashed her ASDA shopping bag onto the wooden table, knocking over already broken glass onto the floor.

“What have you got there?” Bar-Bar sneered. “It better be something hard to break, I’m bored.”

“You won’t be for long,” Lydia said, speaking very softly. She speedily grabbed a bottle of Mr. Muscle and pointed it in Bar-Bar’s direction.

“What have you got there?” Bar-Bar asked, laughing uneasily. “You know it’ll never work.”

“We’ll see then,” replied Lydia, spraying the product onto Bar-Bar.

“No-o-o-o-o-o-o!”