campbell’s mushroom chicken soup

contrary to popular belief, a house can indeed survive on nothing but takeaway. chicken rice and fish burgers and beef bowls and spaghetti. cleanup is easy, for the plastic piles well by the kitchen door and can be thrown down the chute without much further thought. our metal spoons exist in theory, but are usually off limits for how much effort they take to wash. it’s not like we’re animals—we own pots and pans and spatulas and sieves. bottom cupboard, beneath the tupperware and placemats: behold, a rice cooker. nevermind the inner pot coating scratched off, nevermind the carcinogens, nevermind the rice box untouched for years on the console table from the old house. according to Singapore Food Agency, rice weevils pose no harm to humans. you need only remove the insect before your rice is holy once again. contrary to popular belief, i do not take Singapore Food Agency’s word as gospel. i do not eat the damn rice.

campbell’s mushroom chicken soup is on sale for three dollars flat. i load one into my basket and my friend recommends his mother’s special: mushroom macaroni soup. what else does one need? macaroni, sure enough. the bag tells me four servings of a hundred and twenty-five grams each. the bag goes in the basket as i silently commit to eating four meals of durum wheat macaroni, and two point five meals of mushroom chicken soup. who knew you could sell nourishment in point five serving increments? surely not me. the rest of the house makes up their mind about dinner somewhere between five and six o’ clock. meanwhile, i heat up a jello chunk of grey soup and splatter oobleck on the microwave ceiling. i cook the macaroni to package instructions, exactly six minutes. the final meal is dull in colour and controversial in texture and devoid of milk and black pepper and the assorted vegetables that come in frozen packs—we used to have those, once upon a time, before they ran out and nothing took its place—but it is, however, food. i down the bowl quicker than i will later wash it.

_{Felicia Zhuang is a Singaporean writer who generally makes her life decisions based on how interestingly the outcomes may colour her writing. She spent three years in film school with the express purpose of adding credibility to her Letterboxd reviews. She finds the hours between midnight and dawn most conducive to her writing, and would like to one day adopt a cat to keep her company through the nights.}