By D.W. Davis

The chicken is amazing. Twice-fried, then bathed in a house sauce, not too hot, I can’t handle spice, but peppers soothed with butter and honey and maybe a touch of bourbon, though the cook—no chefs here—will never tell. You bite into it—the chicken, not the cook, a man named Julio with a scabrous disposition—and the skin snaps between your teeth, crackling, and the juices flow over your lips and tongue. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and then lick your hand, it’s that moist and that good. Is there a sting of heat, just a tickle, just a tease? Of course there is, there has to be, but it’s not too much, like a lone little cloud in a blue summer’s sky. You take another bite, and the sensations repeat themselves, and you wonder how something so extraordinary could be found in a dive like this, a hole inside a hole in a wall, where the roaches are big enough to count in the census and the pavement outside is lined with years’ old graffiti and used needles. You wouldn’t just pass by here, you would actively ignore it, your consciousness wouldn’t register the exterior, such is the likelihood of you ever stepping foot through that door, hearing the clang of the bell and the groan of rusty hinges. But if you did, if you ignored your instincts and your better nature, you would be hit with a smell so rich and fragrant it is almost overwhelming, and not always in a good way, but if you stepped up to the sticky counter and ordered the chicken, and you withstood the withering gaze of the stoned middle-aged woman behind the counter with track marks in her arm and grease stains on her apron, and you stayed long enough to get your chicken because you already paid for it, they take your money before you take their food—if you stayed through it all, you would be rewarded with a brief, succulent moment of pure nirvana, a rapturous conflagration of oil and heat and texture. Men and women, chefs, explorers, world travels, spend their lives without the pleasure of such an experience. It makes a man greedy and jealous and possessive, and I am glad you do not walk in here, I am glad I have this small treasure of joy all to myself. I lick my fingers and I think about how you are not here and I take another bite and I am, for this brief moment in time where the world ceases to exist and everything is weightless and effervescent—I am truly, and completely, satisfied.

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D.W. Davis (he/him) is a native of rural Illinois. His work has appeared in various online and print journals. You can find him at Facebook.com/DanielDavis05, @dan_davis86 on Twitter, and @dwdavis.bsky.social.