Grease, Memory, Silence

By Nidhi

They called me a kitchen, but I was more than that.

I was argument and apology. Spice and stain.

A silent listener, always warm.

The house beat through me.

The first one wasn’t a tenant.

A boy - skin and bone, barely seventeen.

He slept curled behind the gas cylinder, careful not to creak the floorboards.

Ate only what could be opened without a sound.

He drank tap water like it was mercy.

He left after three weeks, or maybe just disappeared.

The kitchen stayed quiet. Sometimes, it still holds its breath.

Laughter rolled down the hallway like spilled rice.

Five humans, five dogs.

Food was burnt, shared, fought over.

Someone always dancing while stirring.

They argued over plates, forgave over pickles.

A dog once gave birth under the sink. The tiles still remember.

He measured dal with care, set the table for two.

The boy always had headphones in.

The father asked about school. Tried pancakes. Tried silence.

The son only spoke to the microwave.

The kitchen tried to hold them together. But grief eats quietly.

This one cooked fast.

Kept knives in reach.

Cleaned blood with turmeric.

The walls could not forget the slammed cupboard doors.

She stopped flinching after month three.

One night, she left the gas on. On purpose, maybe.

She walked out. No one turned the stove off. The kitchen kept burning until the landlord came.

He boiled milk every morning, then poured it down the sink.

Sat at the table meant for two.

Her tea cup stayed on the shelf. Dust gathered on both.

He forgot the flame once. The pan screamed for help.

On Sundays, he hummed to the pressure cooker.

It was the only thing that answered.

This house had too much life.

Children banged spoons like war drums.

Oil popped like applause.

They put chutney in ice trays.

Laughed until the fridge door rattled.

When they left, even the cockroaches mourned.

She lived alone. No visitors.

Kept the radio on for company.

She called the refrigerator “Ravi” and the chimney “Ma.”

Sometimes she fed imaginary people.

Sometimes she wept into the rice.

But she always cooked with care. Even silence deserves seasoning.

The kitchen stayed ready.

But the lights stayed off.

No footsteps, no heat, no onion skins on the floor.

The sink forgot what plates felt like.

The stove waited. The table forgot laughter.

The walls began to peel.

They came with helmets and machines.

No prayers. No thanks.

Just noise and dust.

The kitchen cracked first-

its drawers, its memories,

its quiet archive of lives lived badly, tenderly, fully.

No one asked what it had seen.

And then,

it was nothing.

Not even a room.

By Nidhi