Congratulations on Cooking Up Something Nice!

You’ll pull the glob of meat out of the fridge, then dump it into the fryer.

“FIVE MINUTES OUT!” you’ll shout at your manager, who will nod.

Then you’ll stare at a wall and wait for the ding to sound.  Your attention will be pre-eminently drawn to a stain in the center of the wall, a stain that will, by your observation, move around the wall almost indiscernibly.  When the timer finally dings, the stain will have moved several microns to the left.

You’ll make a note of this for future observation and reportage as you pull the steel wire basket up from the boiling oil and reveal its contents: perfectly browned slabs of chicken, just like in the pictures out front.  You’ll dump the chicken from the basket into the steel tray, where it will rest underneath a heat lamp, awaiting someone bold or foolish or desperate enough to test themselves upon its crumbly surface.

When someone does finally arrive and order up a piece of “chicken,” you’ll deliver it using a metal scoop that transfers the meat-like substance from its steel receptacle to a cardboard one.  The grease, still foaming even after all this time out of the fryer, will begin to set into the cardboard immediately, giving it an unhealthy sheen that will blossom into a sickly transparency as you set the cardboard package into a paper bag, and set the grease to eroding the opacity of the paper bag as well.

After the man has given you his money, halfway to the door, he’ll have the chicken out of its box, in his hands, clutched to his mouth.  He’ll tear at it, moaning slightly.

“Fuck yeah,” he’ll murmur as the grease drips down his chin.  You’ll see his hand enter his pants from behind as he leaves your store and moves back out on to the street.  You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment in that moment: perhaps your chicken will in some way shorten that man’s life.

Congratulations on Cooking Up Something Nice!