by Ian William Walker
On a humid day in May, my mom brought home pre-made fried chicken from the local grocery store. Obviously, I was ecstatic. It was greasy, salty, and delicious. All the buzzwords a child loved to hear when it came to food.
The messiness of the chicken was about to wipe away the hard work the shower did to get me and my siblings clean. Of course, we didn’t take those showers to get clean. We took them to kill the bed bugs that lived on us throughout the day, carried over from our dad’s house.
It never killed them all.
Usually, we would have a meal cooked by our mom (whether that be frozen or handmade), but that day she looked particularly exhausted. On the way home from school, she was complaining about her boss at work and how the barking dogs next door woke her up before her alarm went off for her night shift. So that day, she brought home fried chicken. And while it tasted good, anything made by her always tasted better.
After dinner, my dad came to pick us all up and take us home. The next day at his house he said, as he itched his hand and arm, “Tonight, for dinner, how about some fried chicken from Homeland?”
Pre-made fried chicken
Is sometimes what we need to
Get to tomorrow
Ian William Walker is a college student and amateur writer from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His work has previously been published in the Young Writers Anthology of Oklahoma. In between his classes, Ian loves to write, play D&D with his friends, and race down the river with his rowing team.