Prelude 1 – A short scene that grew into the absurdity known as The Kitchen Chronicles Collection
©ESR 2025

The sun was barely up when she stumbled into the kitchen wearing yesterday’s regrets and a pair of black yoga pants that had seen more existential spirals than actual stretches.

There was a rip in the seam near her thigh.

A tiny one.

She considered it a badge of survival.

The cat—named Benedict, obviously—meowed with judgment from atop the fridge, as if he too were hungover on too many dreams deferred and not enough daylight.

“Don’t start with me,” she muttered, pulling a pan from the rack like a knight drawing a sword. “You ever tried not crying before noon, Benny?”

He blinked.

She lit the burner.

She didn’t intend to make fried eggs.

She intended to stare into the refrigerator for fifteen minutes and then cry on the floor. But something about the sizzle of butter reminded her that she still had a pulse. That her skin, though tired, still ached for warmth. And that maybe—just maybe—food was a kind of spell.

So she cracked two eggs with a precision that only broken people perfect.

The yolks were golden. Alive.

She flipped one too soon.

Left the other sunny side up, like a little round face that didn’t yet know the world.

And as she sat cross-legged on the couch, mismatched mug in hand, she realized:

Maybe today didn’t require healing.

Maybe it just required yoga pants with memories, a cat with opinions, and a pair of eggs that didn’t ask her to be okay.