They are the ones I scoop from the bucket. I am the one who adds the salt. Fifty popcorn kernels who roll around in the dark brown oil. Fifty within a bag of thousands. Fifty tiny kernels with nothing to prove. I turn on the heat and pour them into their metal cocoon.

Their truth is hidden. They send their buttery scent to the customers. They expand and contract in the hot oil as they are fighting to keep themselves as the small beads they originally are. This is when they pop.

Let one forget to resist the heat, they’d all explode like firecrackers, each expanding into the round popcorn we’ve grown to love. Pop, pop, pop they say in the oil. In the heat.

When I am too busy and too rushed to keep popping, when I am one man against a line of twenty. When there is no popcorn left and I have nothing to scoop. Fifty I forgot were in the oil. Fifty who pop and do not forget to pop. FIfty whose only reason is to be consumed.