We crouched around the open oven like it was a crime scene. The thing was about the size of a thumb, oddly smooth in some places, jagged in others, with a thin metallic spine running through it. Someone muttered that it looked like a piece of a crashed drone. Another swore it had to be part of a broken dish. But the more we stared, the more unsettling it felt: this hadn’t just sat there, it had survived something.
Only when we spotted the twisted remains of the ignition wheel did it click. A lighter. Someone must have dropped it onto a tray days ago, forgotten it, then slid everything back in for Thanksgiving. The oven heat had melted the plastic into a grotesque sculpture, leaving only the metal skeleton. The realization came with a chill: it could have exploded. We laughed it off in the end, but now, before every big meal, we double-check the oven like a ritual.
