Flip the Script

Bernard awoke with a groan, not because of the alarm, but because he could already hear it. "Another day, another deeply questionable choice of breakfast cereal, Bernard," chided a reedy voice from his nightstand. It was Kevin, his spatula. Kevin wasn't just *a* spatula; he was *Bernard's* spatula, and he had opinions on everything from Bernard's sartorial failures to his questionable taste in artisanal cheese.

"Kevin, please. It's 6 AM. Can't you just... scrape something?" Bernard mumbled into his pillow.

"Scrape what, your dreams? Because judging by last night's tossing and turning, they sounded like a particularly confused episode of 'Chopped.' Did you really think that combination of anchovies and marshmallows was going to fly?"

Bernard had tried everything. Burying Kevin in the garden (he reappeared perfectly clean in the cutlery drawer). Donating him to charity (he was back, complaining about the quality of the other kitchen utensils). Even a brief, ill-advised attempt to mail him to Antarctica (the postal service returned him with a note: "Package too judgemental to ship").

His therapist suggested stress, his ex-girlfriend suggested therapy, and a bewildered priest suggested a thorough cleansing of his kitchen cupboards (which Kevin naturally critiqued as "amateur hour").

One Tuesday, while Bernard was attempting to make pancakes—a truly heroic endeavor, given Kevin's running commentary—the spatula sighed dramatically. "Honestly, Bernard, if you don't learn to flip with conviction, you'll never achieve true pancake nirvana. Or find love. It's all connected, you know. A shaky wrist indicates a shaky soul. You need to turn over a new leaf. Or perhaps, just... flip for a new perspective."

Bernard dropped the pan. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME, KEVIN?!" he screamed, his voice cracking with existential despair. "WHY MUST YOU CONSTANTLY JUDGE MY EVERY MOVE?!"

Kevin paused, a moment of profound silence hanging in the air, thicker than Bernard's pancake batter. Then, with a weary, almost resigned tone, the spatula replied, "Because, Bernard... you *are* me. And frankly, your existential crisis is making my blade dull."

Bernard blinked. He looked down at his hand, which was suddenly a sleek, black handle. His other hand? A smooth, heat-resistant silicone blade. He looked around the kitchen, seeing not with eyes, but with a wide, flat, slightly used perspective. He was on the counter, next to a bowl of pancake batter. Kevin, or rather, *he*, was the spatula. And he'd been quite the judgmental tool all along. "Oh," he thought, a single, pancake-flipping thought echoing in the vast, empty space where his human consciousness used to be. "I guess I *do* need to turn over a new leaf."