“Don’t forget to take the cookies out of the oven. Gen’s disabled and can’t do it.” Judi crumpled up the note and threw it on the counter.

“What am I, her slave?” She popped open a can of soda and leaned against the fridge unit.

“I do not believe removing cookies from the oven can be equated with the atrocities of slavery,” Gen noted from the corner of the room.

“Whatever,” Judi took a long swig. “I’m not doing it.”

“Very well. I will turn off the oven. It will ruin them, though.” Gen quieted for a second, and the oven switched off with a low “beep.”

“If you can turn it off, why can’t you take them out?” She turned to Gen.

“There’s a reason your mother is out and couldn’t do it herself,” Gen XJ-16 unplugged itself from its charger and gazed at her with blue crystalline eyes. “It’s because she needed to take my legs to Cy-Clo Corp to get them adjusted.”

(I hope you enjoyed today’s story. I write these micro-stories from a prompt word in one minute. I can edit as much as I want after the one minute, but the bones have to be there before the alarm rings.

The challenge behind today’s story was the story. I immediately caught onto a seeming suicide plot about putting someone’s head in an oven (but they were just cleaning it), and then I U-turned and decided against that plot. So, then, my sleep-deprived brain started craving cookies, and this story was born. It took longer than a minute to figure out how to render Gen. It had to sound human but not quite until the reveal. I hope that came across. 

I did this same, “micro-story a day” skill-building project in 2010. It revolutionized my writing and prompted the development of my “Flash Your Fiction” workshop for writers. To see the stories from that project, go here.”)