By Frank Yin

Pshhhhh! Pshhhh! Pshhh! The rice seasoning landed on my hand as we were eating lunch. It was 11:00 a.m. on a bright sunny day and I had just slept for 10 hours. I jumped out of bed and brushed my teeth with my toothbrush on low battery. I had finished as the bristles started to slow down and shot through the stairs like a machine gun. Then, I sat myself down on the couch watching Youtube and playing chess. Before I knew it, it was lunchtime. I was “walking” with my phone to go wash my hands, and 10 minutes later, I was eating spicy chicken wings and rice. Dad, sister, and I complained about how spicy the chicken wings were, but we quickly started to talk about our schedule for the rest of the day. Since there was nothing to go with the rice except for the extremely spicy chicken wings, we decided to use some rice seasoning. I studied my hand to make sure I did not pour too much seasoning, but I still ended up with too much. To avoid wasting seasoning, I poured the leftover seasoning back in the can.

My sister was sitting across from me while she poked at her food. She stared at a blank space as if she were in a daze. Her eyes were slightly watery like a half filled glass of water.

Then, her eyes went from drooping to bulging as she saw me pour the dirty seasoning with my disgusting hand back in the can. Suddenly, the room went dark as my sister slapped her hand on the table. Her eyes beamed at me as she ripped my soul apart. Her mouth would open and close at 100 mph as she lectured me about always putting my dirty food where it should not go. She left and then came back to yell at me again like lightning striking. I tried to reason with her and almost started to yell back until she left, and it turned dead silent.

The storm had gone as quickly as it had come. All that was left were puddles of despair. The sun was hidden from the clouds and the moon began to rise.

When I went to bed, all I could remember was my fight with my sister. I could hear sirens going off in my head somehow saying “Why was she being so unreasonable?” “Why didn’t she stop?” “Was it really that bad?”. I searched in my brain for the reason and my foggy memory started to clear up. I was in the car after finishing practice at my table tennis club. My mom was driving and talking to me as I was trying to listen to music and play chess. I threw my patience out of the window and screamed for her to stop. My heart dropped, and I was unable to continue playing on my phone. Gradually, the sirens started to diminish and I fell asleep.