Prelude #2 to The Origin Story of The Kitchen Chronicles
(You met the Woman and the Cat… now…meet the Kitchen.)
©ESR 2025

Prelude 1: Of Fried Eggs and Yoga Pants

“Inside the Kitchen Cube Intelligence”

A top-secret field report, recently declassified (accidentally), found in the folds of a suspiciously crumpled grocery receipt.

⸻

The Kitchen Cube never sleeps.

Tucked in plain sight beneath the stainless-steel illusion of a suburban trash can, it’s the epicenter of global waste intelligence—where trash bags are not just bags… they’re operatives. Quiet. Durable. Unseen. They cradle the chaos of your life like lovers with classified clearance.

Agent Bag-47 zipped his seams tighter as the lid creaked open above him. New drop incoming.

Crinkle. Rustle. Thud.

—One used takeout container, oily and forlorn.

—Three wine corks. From three different bottles.

—A crumpled sticky note with the words “don’t forget the moon” scribbled in lavender ink.

—And… a single, slightly burnt Pop-Tart.

He sighed through the faint scent of regret and artificial berry. They’re spiraling again, he noted into the invisible audio log. Moon memo confirmed—Phase 7 likely imminent.

From a secure chute below, the evidence was suctioned down into the network’s core pipeline. The Cube’s analysts—a cadre of wire-framed AI cockroaches and emotionally stunted Roombas—would decode it all.

The emotional stability rating?

Low.

The need for psychological coffee?

High.

The number of expired coupons hidden under the empty frozen pizza box?

Don’t ask.

Down in Bin 9, Bag-23 was having a breakdown. She’d just returned from a frat house recon mission. The things she’d seen. The smells.

Meanwhile, over in Compost Division, the eco-agents were smug and self-righteous. “We know what she grows in those raised beds,” muttered Mulch-Unit Alpha. “And we don’t like how close she’s getting to the neighbor. Seen the banana peels? Way too many.”

Back upstairs, Bag-47 was starting to sweat. He knew what was coming. He could feel the distinct weight shift of impending betrayal.

Cleaning day.

He braced himself. The can shifted. The bag lifted. And as he was hoisted into the arms of the unsuspecting human—his partner, his cover, his blind accomplice—he whispered his final transmission before being hurled into the outdoor bin:

“Analysis complete. Subject 278-A has reordered the same Thai takeout four Thursdays in a row.

She’s forgotten her dream journal in the freezer again.

And she cried while watching an old cooking show about lasagna.

Recommend surveillance drone shaped like a garden gnome.

Also… tell Bag-23 I miss her.”

End log.