IT IS BREATHING, the oven taking measured sighs as it ticks its way to warmth. It is alarming, the awareness of it near Jeremy’s head. He doesn’t know why it’s alarming, but it is out of place, as out of place as his hands and feet being bound on the kitchen floor. Out of place is worrisome. He hasn’t used the oven much, frozen pizzas being the main course entering and exiting its depths. The old oven was faulty, two hundred degrees one moment, four hundred the next. So he replaced it, a few months ago, the stainless steel fixture the only bit of this kitchen younger than him. Six or seven pizzas have made their way through those doors, eggs have been cooked on its surface, grilled cheeses flipped on frying pans. There is no reason why, randomly, the oven would turn on. It shouldn’t. Jeremy lies there, mind working, and starts to smell pizza.