Author: Niamh McCrohan

Salty Yellow Broth

I had just come back from tramping in the woods. I came into the musty smelling, wood floor slanting kitchen where my mother awaited. I had been gone all afternoon. I was too young to do that. The Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup that my brother and I had begged my mom to buy was in a bowl on the table. The table was covered in a blue plastic table cloth, and the yellow of the soup in the bowl contrasted nicely with it. The commercials for the soup had convinced us entirely of the soup’s deliciousness. The kids in the cartoons rocked out eating that soup, went to the moon eating that soup, and sang mmm mmm good eating that soup! But when I sat down to eat it out of a tarnished silver spoon, it tasted like salty, yellow, piss broth. My mom’s homemade soups were better.

“Eat the soup I bought you! That soup costs money. I don’t have money to waste!”

I had been out in the woods all day, and hadn’t told my mom or anyone when I’d be back.

“Where were you?! I almost called the police to send helicopters out looking for you. Don’t! Do this! Again!”

As I filled the spoon with liquid, a helicopter with its spotlight searching, hovered above me in the kitchen.

 

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Niamh McCrohan was born in Rye, NY. She is an English major at SUNY Geneseo. She hates roller coasters and loves the sea. This is her first online publication.