I started writing this after putting some CDs in the microwave. I'd read about it at Adam's blog (February 12 2003, 'Your Own Personal Lighting Show'). However, I couldn't be bothered finishing the story. Now it's nearly the end of semester, and I need to hand in 4000 words worth of short stories in two weeks, so I just finished it then.

Why You Shouldn't Burn CDs
A Cautionary Tale

Find a crappy CD you don’t listen to anymore and are extremely embarrassed about owning. One you got when you were thirteen or fourteen; a single where all the tracks are just different versions of the same repetitive song repeated repetitively song repeated repetitively repeated repetitively. It’s probably Boyzone or Spice Girls or something. If you’re a bit younger (or just immature), maybe it’s Avril Lavigne or John Mayer.

Remove the disc from its case. Open the door of the microwave. Place the disc inside the microwave, reflective-side-up. Close the door. Set the microwave to cook for ten seconds. Start the microwave. Sit back and watch as your very own mini electrical storm (no that is not the name of the CD) takes place before your very eyes. Watch and listen as your housemate freaks out because he or she doesn’t know what’s going to happen and thinks his or her microwave with its mother-written instructions taped onto the door is going to explode or something.

Open the door of the microwave and remove the CD. Note the wrinkles and burns in the reflective foil. Give it a poke with your fingertip, causing the fragile foil to flake off.

Notice an itch in your eye. Scratch it with your finger, pressing a tiny foil particle into your cornea. Cringe with pain. To try and make it feel better, rub your eye, pressing the foreign matter deeper into your eye. Notice that this just makes it feel worse. Begin to hope it will just go away.

After three days of severe pain and deteriorating vision, take a visit to your doctor. Sit still as he or she examines your eye. Become worried as he or she lets out an urgent gasp, informs you that your eye has become gangrenous and calls an ambulance, which rushes you to the nearest hospital.

Take deep breaths as they roll your stretcher down the light-green painted corridors and into the operating theatre. Hyperventilate as the surgeon declares that the eye will have to be removed. Watch as the anaesthetist inserts an anaesthetic drip into your left hand, and places a mask over your face. Hear him or her count to three as you drift into unconsciousness. Lie helpless as the surgeon begins to cut out your damaged and infected eye. Feel nothing as one of the nurses accidentally knocks him or her, causing him or her to drive the blade through the eye socket and into your brain, killing you.

This is why you shouldn’t burn CDs.