The Multi-genre Mashup SmackDown

Golden Raisins Sink Although They're Shiny

Hazen lifted a tarnished spoon from the mangled drawer on her left. The handle of the utensil was jerry-rigged from the origins of a badminton racket–more precisely from the origins of her brother's glorious and pallid mind. Nonetheless the mauve leather was a comfort underhand, though the material was weathered by unsubstantial matches of gameplay in the Silicon Valley.

She dipped the tip of the spoon into a robust pot of bubbling cranberries. Brown sugar and vanilla extract melded together with orange liqueur. Sweet steam poured through the kitchen and soggied dark oak flooring. The smell nestled into the couch, and even clung to knit blankets she'd purchased at a local candy cane festival. It swirled in closets, sifting through coat pockets and crumpled receipts, it pounced in waves along the stairs as she stirred and stirred. The home converted to a beacon of cranberry compote.

She dropped a handful of golden raisins in, and they sank. They weren't called for, but she was improvising her way through the directions.

It was a loose recipe handed down from her grandfather, quite literally since he lived eight streets over. She'd adapted it into modern English, because her grandfather had written it in Portuguese, when his father was shouting it to him through a telephone under cannon fire at the edge of a warzone, benighted by a muddled geopolitical triangle scheme off the Red Sea.

As she dropped another tablespoon of maple syrup in, she hummed a holiday carol, something akin to The Christmas Song. Hazen believed November was the perfect time to hum hallmark songs, although her brother, Hemlock protested having a tree in the house until Thanksgiving had passed. No negotiations took place and so she would hum, and hang a wreath until December 1st.

Hemlock was standing atop the second floor bathroom sink, documenting a state police vehicle. A pair of goggles rested over his bulky head. The goggles were one of his early models; they had lenses stacked frontways, sideways, perpendicularly and even below his chin.

His scrawny fingers gripped the window sill. "Why would you be going 57 miles per hour in a school zone?" He flipped down his forehead lens, and it zoomed in on the front windshield. "Blonde, I know you." He pointed to a sticky note, tacked to the shower curtain. "This isn't your jurisdiction." He scribbled onto the toilet tank, Z4P 917. He let out a shaky breath, flipping up his forehead lens, regular vision was restored.

Below the license plate he wrote in capital letters AMATURE. He lifted his chin lens swapping the activated ear lenses. As the vehicle turned right Hemlock leaped into action. He threw down the goggles like a small-time oculist and opened a cabinet below the sink.

A line of binders awaited his prodding fingers, he skipped to the third one. Miscellaneous documents filled the binder rings to the brim with information.

"Alright, brown eyed, UNLV graduate, divorced with an addiction to purchasing television remotes." He tapped his head recalling the man's face, and dropped down a line, "Today he threw a scene in a Mcdonalds play place when his hand radio sunk to the bottom of a children's ball pit after he'd assaulted a clown." The final sentence was underlined; anti–tap water drinker. Hemlock saw this driver's trunk once before and he noted it was 'packed with Dasani bottles and disassembled microwaves.' He giggled to himself as he scrambled to the second floor balcony.

Hazen removed a jar of orange peels from a cupboard and assembled some spices as they'd been inscribed. This was the lengthiest recipe she'd ever seen in her life. It had to be done in order and in slow progression, so that the mixture would thicken in the pot. It wasn't a recipe she could repeat, especially since dinner was rapidly approaching. Between each step she would stir for 2 minutes, it gave her some time to multitask between steps.