Lasagna Dish.

There I was, in the middle of my own kitchen circus. Not the kind with confetti and applause, but a tragic solo performance amid crumbs, congealed grease stains, and stopped appliances. One hand clutched the rim of a platter that had once been the stage for a grandiose act: lasagna, three tiers high, a spectacle of cheese and sauce, a headliner on a weeknight. Now? An exhausted performer after the curtain. The leftovers were stuck like unsold tickets to a long-defunct ticket booth.

My gaze drifted to the surface. Not to check if the dish was dishwasher-safe—I already knew that—but because something was staring back at me. A vague reflection, captured in the glistening grease and smudged tomato spores. Not a clear reflection, but an abstract portrait of someone who'd stayed on stage too long. Red and white shapes smudged through the hazy sheen, as if the makeup had never quite come off.

And there they were: my eyes. Two lights, once meant for laughter, now half-extinguished. As if they'd already endured too many public glances. My face shimmered back from the depths of the bowl like a clown after closing time—only that's only natural. not What I am. Of course not.

The kitchen around me was the backdrop: cluttered, deserted, post-apocalyptic in its ordinariness. An empty carton of grated cheese, a pan containing something sticky that began as a sauce and ended as an abstraction, a tea towel in a tragic splatter on the floor. And me, the sole spectator of this scene of still action.

With a flourish I barely possessed anymore, I slid open the bottom rack of the dishwasher. The dish slid into place, as if it knew where it belonged. As if it still believed in the cleansing ritual that awaited it. And I, with the dignity of someone who has just performed their last act, opened the compartment for the dishwasher tab.

Empty.

The box—gone. No shiny block, no promise of restoration, no conclusion to this tragicomedy. Just an empty compartment. And silence.

My hand lingered. Not so much in surprise, but in surrender. I gently closed the dishwasher door, like someone closing the curtains after a failed premiere.

And there I stood.

No flowers.

No bow.

Just me, a face in fat, disappearing into the surface of something I thought I understood.

It was just a scale.

But it felt like the end of the show.