Brownies Well Done

Vix smelled the apartment before she saw it.

She was halfway up the stairs after her seminar on existential dread, which had gone exactly as expected, and the hallway smelled like someone had tried to cremate chocolate. Her door was cracked open and a thin grey cloud was leaking out into the hall.

She opened it.

The apartment was full of smoke.

Not thick, house-on-fire smoke. Low, miserable, brownie smoke that had decided to become a weather system in their living room.

"Tai?" Vix coughed, dropping her bag. "Tai!"

"I'm okay! I'm okay! Everything is fine! Or, okay, not fine, but not on fire anymore!" Tai's voice came from the kitchen, muffled by what sounded like a t-shirt pulled over her face.

Vix waved smoke away and found her. Tai was 5'3" in her giant oven mitts that didn't match, red hair even messier than usual and smelling faintly of burnt sugar, pointy ears pink. In front of her on the stove was a pan. Or what used to be a pan. Inside was a solid black rectangle that was still faintly smoking.

"I made brownies," Tai announced, like this explained everything.

"You made charcoal," Vix said. She went straight to the window and threw it open, then the other one. October air poured in. "How long were you baking them?"

Tai squinted at the microwave clock, which said 4:42. "Well, I put them in at two. And then I started painting and I forgot. And then I remembered at three thirty but I thought, maybe they need more time to get fudgy? So I left them a little more."

"Tai, that's two hours."

"Time is a construct!"

"Time is how ovens work!"

Tai lifted the pan with both mitts and held it up proudly. The smoke alarm, which had finally given up, gave one last weak beep.

"Okay, but look for the silver lining," Tai said, her chaotic cheer kicking in at full power. Her canines showed when she grinned. "One, our apartment now has atmosphere. Very moody. Very goth. You're always saying you want more ambiance, this is ambiance!"

"This is smoke inhalation."

"Two, we now know the smoke alarm works. We had never tested it before. That's safety! And three," she poked the black brick with a spatula and it made a clunk sound, "we have modern art."

Vix stared at the pan. "Tai, that is not food anymore. That is a geological formation."

"It is still brownie," Tai insisted. "Just... extra done. Like, well done. Some people like well done. Like steaks. This is a well done brownie. It's got character. Crunchy on the outside, crunchy on the inside, crunchy all the way through."

She tried to cut it. The knife bounced.

"See? It's got structural integrity. Most brownies don't have that."

Vix took the knife from her before she hurt herself.

"Tai, love, you cannot eat that."

"I can try a corner," Tai said. "For science. For art. For not wasting food. My mom said—"

"Your mom would tell you to throw that directly into the trash and then throw the trash away outside," Vix said. But she was already less angry and more resigned, which was her version of fond.

Tai pouted, ears drooping a little. "But I made them for you. Because you got an A on your paper about absurdism. I wanted to do a nice thing."

The smoke was clearing now. The apartment looked like a very dramatic art installation with light cutting through haze. Vix looked at Tai, covered in cocoa powder, holding a pan of absolute disaster brownies she had clearly made with genuine love, and sighed.

"That is sweet," Vix said. "Stupid, but sweet."

Tai lit up again instantly. "So we can eat them?"

"We can order pizza and keep one as a reminder to set a timer," Vix said. She took the pan and, with some effort, dumped the entire brownie brick into the trash. It landed with a thud.

Tai watched it go. "Do you think if I paint it gold it could be a bookend?"

"Tai, no."

"You're right, silver would match your vibe better."

Vix laughed despite herself, coughed again, and opened the front door to air the rest out. "Come on, burnt brownie girl. Help me fan the smoke out before Mrs. Jensen thinks we're hotboxing again."

Tai grabbed a sketchbook and started fanning, cheerful even in the haze. "See? Silver lining. Now our apartment smells like a campfire. Very cozy, very autumnal. Very intentional."

"Very inedible," Vix said, but she grabbed a sketchbook too and fanned beside her.

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