"That makes no sense, of course the cake doesn't exist yet."

"Oh yeah? What's in a cake -- flour, butter, eggs, salt, sugar? Same as what's in the bowl already."

Shannon scrolled through the recipe with a floury knuckle, checking for the eighth time whether she'd preheated the oven to the right temperature.

"The cake is what happens after the mixing and the heating and the frosting," she said. "It's a process, not a pile of ingredients."

I plucked a few chocolate chips from a set-aside measuring cup, earning me a smack from Shannon's spoon. I shrugged.

"Yeah, from here we can't experience the cake, but in 45 minutes we'll be on the other side. I feel like there's no real difference, being-wise. All we do is change position. The cake already exists in the future, just as the sugar existed in the past as sugarcane, or the butter as milk in a cow's teat."

Kyle chuckled from the kitchen door. "Just as we all existed in our dad's gonads."

Shannon slid the pan into the oven and set the timer. "How do these conversations always end in you two saying 'teat', or 'gonads'?" She wiped a strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand. "Not that I care, but your idea is still dumb. The cake is a cake when it becomes a cake -- heat and chemistry build it up layer by layer, and only if nothing intereferes. I can think of a million ways to stop it from 'aready existing' before then."

"Please don't," said Kyle, holding his stomach. "I'm on your side. It smells so good."

Meanwhile, I was staring at Shannon. She glared suspiciously. I whipped out my phone and took a picture before she could stop me.

"Hey, don't!"

"What? You're cute when you're sweaty. I wanted to save the moment."

"You stole the moment." Shannon huffed performatively and tried to wash the flour from her hands, smiling just a little. I sidled up and helped her with the soap.

Kyle was staring past us, at the oven timer. "Whoa..."

I tried to ignore him, still kind of annoyed that he was at his sister's place when I expected to have the afternoon alone with her.

"Like, whoa..."

I rolled my eyes. "What, Kyle?"

"What you said about the sugar..." He was furrowing his eyebrows, squinting one eye like it hurt to think out loud. "It existed before; that means more exists in the future, but not the forever future."

"So?"

"So, one day we'll run out of sugar."

Shannon shook her head at her little brother, giving him equal servings of comfort and condescension. "You and I won't run out, even if I made a cake every day for the rest of your life."

"Right, but I'm saying every time you scoop it, you're using up some of all the sugar there'll ever be." Kyle sat down at the little breakfast table next to the sink. "In a way, it's like you're taking sugar away from the future."

I dried my hands. "Yeah, and one day we're all going to die, and the sun's gonna burn up, and the universe will go dark." Shannon gave me a disapproving look, worried I was going to scare her impressionable fourteen-year old brother. So I kept going, trying to salvage it.

"...Far enough in the future, everything is gone. But you're here, not there. Worry about the stuff that's in reach."

Kyle didn't look consoled. Rather, his round face darkened. "But it's not just sugar -- air, water, fuckin'...electricity and inertia." He looked at the oven's LCD display ticking down. "What if even time can get used up too soon?"

Shannon sat across from Kyle and held out her hand for him to hold. So she had time for his dumb ideas...

"Hey, don't get worked up again, little man." She shot an accusatory look at me.

I put my hands up defensively. "Look, you're the one who said I 'stole a moment'."

Kyle couldn't take his eyes off the oven timer. "Every picture, every video -- every snapshot of a moment. What if we're using it up? Stealing time from a finite pool."

Shannon and I shared a look, my side of it mostly incredulous that she was taking any of this seriously.

"We started slow, with cave paintings," said Kyle. "Then poems, and songs, and statues. Portraits and novels." He went wide-eyed in my direction. "Whenever you write one of your books, you're taking even more. Not to mention photography, movies, TV -- then selfies, YouTube, Twitch, TikToks, Instagram, ChatGPT slop. We've probably stolen more time in the last 24 hours than all of human history combined."

Shannon raised her eyebrows. "That...sure would be crazy alright. Are you OK, buddy?"

Kyle pointed at my phone on the counter. "I'm not actually worked up Shannon -- I'm not twelve anymore. I'm just saying, what if that was the last straw? What if time ended right then and there..."

The kitchen was eerily silent. None of us met one another's eyes. Somehow, I was almost swept up by the idea. Kind of, for a second.

"What if," Kyle whispered, leaning in toward his sister with glistening eyes and trembling hands. "What if the whole universe ended because he took a picture of your sweaty face?"

His grin was practically wider than his face. Shannon rolled her eyes then yanked her hands away and left to check on the cake. I took her place at the table and bedgrudingly mirrored Kyle's mischevious smile.

"OK, that was pretty good." I picked up my phone and opened the notes app. "Not a bad idea for a short story or something. I might try to write it; see if I can recreate the moment."

Kyle wagged his finger in warning. Shannon shut the oven, and I titled my note "The Last Straw".

But as I typed my fingers felt heavy, hindered.

The oven timer showed 41:02.

And 41:01 never came.