After a dinner of green salad and a baked pasta casserole, the family convened on the living room couch in front of the TV. Dad sat at one end and his son sat on the other with the frying pan on the ottoman near his son’s elbow. They left a space in the middle for Mom since she usually held the massive bowl of popcorn that everyone munched on during Friday family movie night.
“What movie are we watching?” the teenager asked his father who shrugged.
“Your mother says she has a list.”
Mom bustled into the room. “It’s a top ten list of action-adventure movies and I wanted to wait to pick a movie with you guys. Lemme bring up the list. Here.” Handing Dad a huge bowl of home-popped popcorn that smelled amazing, she patted her back jeans pocket. “Oops, where’d I put my phone? Hang on.”
She scampered around the house, retracing her steps to find her phone.
“You got the remote?” said Dad.
His son waggled a sleek black remote and then clicked on the large flat screen TV. A local news station came on. Checking the remote’s buttons, he moved to change the screen to their favorite streaming-on-demand service.
“Wait wait wait!” cried the frying pan. “Stay on this station!”
“On the news?” said Dad and the teen in unison, both with cocked brows.
“Yeah! I’ve been magically listening to the radio waves and that guy—the guy the news lady is talking about—is nuts, and nobody’s stopping him.” Steam seemed to rise from the pan’s body. “Have you seen it?”
Dad gazed dourly at the screen. “Everyone’s seen it. The baj-illionaire sorcerer manufactured a spell so complex and tangled with international law that governments aren’t gaining any traction in stopping him. The people who should be able to do something about it are more confused than anything, or they’re being paid off.”
“It embarrassing,” muttered the teen.
Flicking a glimpse aside as his son, Dad went on. “The spell completes itself tomorrow night at 9 p.m. local time, and then after that…” He scratched the back of his head. “While the sorcerer’s targets are people in power and some of the largest companies in the world, there’s really no telling what the outcome is going to look like for everyone else but the concensus is that it won’t be good. The worst part is that it’s all stupid posturing. Juvenile I’m-better-than-you stuff. It’s just surreal. Like, what moron would ruin this many lives—a literal world of lives—for the sake of one-upping “powerful” people? And not even targeting specific powerful people, but all of them. Anyone who has any money at all.” He grumbled, “It still doesn’t feel real.”
“Some of my teachers have been helping us debate it in class,” said the teenager, earning a glance from his father, “since it’s a current event and we’re going be affected. This past Wednesday, my My American history class combined with psychology and honors English for a round-table debate. We talked about how something like this won’t directly, like, affect people’s health but it could be an unintended outcome. Fore example, it could cause interruptions in the function for the larger scale service rendering companies that support internet, power, and transportation and those problems can trickle down to create hiccups locally which then can impact local governments’ ability to do their jobs. It’s kinda scary.”
“It’s insane,” the pan agreed. “So what are you two gonna do about it?”
Dad blinked. “Sorry?”
“We can’t do anything,” explained the boy, “since we don’t use magic.”
“I’m a CPA.” Dad chuckled wryly. “I’m the epitome of non-magical.”
“And I’m made of metal,” snapped the pan, “so what. The world only has a little over 24 hrs and nobody’s even come close to stopping this guy yet. We should at least try do something about it while we have the chance. Mom, back me up here.”
Mom reappeared with her phone in hand, having overheard enough of the conversation. Since the baj-illionaire sorcerer first issued the melodramatic threat and the magical spell began it’s unimpeded countdown, she had forced herself to be brave and carry on with life because she felt like that was all that she could do.
Now, her eyes were narrowed. “What did you have in mind?”
Dad and the teen looked from Mom to the pan.
“Tell me what you think of this idea…” Once the frying pan explained its idea, the family shared intrigued glances and agreed to give it a shot.
[to be continued…]
Prompt: Frying pan defeats sorcerer and saves the world.
Source: The misinterpretation and miscommunication of a prompt from an online random plot generator.
Duri Rolvsson 