Cilantro

A small, brown house by the lakeside filled their vision. Around it, emerald-green grass sprouted from the ground, dotted by pastel colored flowers and earth-scented herbs. The memory, however distant it might’ve been, smelled distinctively of cilantro. It was their house, though it seemed a little disingenuous to call it “home”. It wasn’t theirs anymore, not since a very long time ago. But that didn’t matter anymore, they thought, all they could identify was the strong smell of wood, freshly trimmed grass, and sprigs of fragrant plants in the deeply maroon-colored pots on the house’s porch. How long had it been since they remembered the small brown house by the lake? They reached out towards it, trying to discern the cragginess of the stone pillars through the foggy mirage of memory; they again attempted to identify something, maybe the sweet aroma wafting from the kitchen, or the taste of fresh fruit along with the feeling of its flesh stuck between their molars. They never went back to it before they left - the thought of the house not being there anymore haunted their waking life, and stripped them of the comfort of sleep. In spite of this, they decided it wasn’t worth it to know if it was there or not. It wasn’t their home anymore, after all.

Regret is a scary word. Not in the sense of horrifying monsters or thinly veiled figures prowling on the vulnerable under the cover of darkness, but in a more unnerving way. To regret, to play back a choice over and over in your mind, hopelessly trying to will your body and soul back into that time, to change that one thing. That one small thing. To act differently, to even act at all; all futile, this futility not met with shock, or even frustration: just the hollow sentiment of being disappointed in the impossible. To remember. To be sorrowful. To never forget. A thousand creatures crawling under your skin, digging into your flesh, bones, organs, soul, and mind. To mourn, to lament, to rue, to fret, to be afraid, to blame, to grieve, to self-immolate in cold flames of remorse. Regret is a scary word.

The view outside the window of the metal vessel was pure void. Minute dots of light sprinkled the barren landscape. Cheers erupted from a speaker near the front, repeating the same five seconds of audio ad nauseam. Everything felt artificial. The cheers, the emotion, and the people behind those sounds were all gone; no one understood that better than them.

They couldn’t sit still, so instead they stood up and tried to walk around the vessel. Gravity changed, and soon they were floating next to a window, peering out towards the darkness. Nothing, not a single thing for light years on end. Was there ever going to be anything out there, in that cold, dark expanse to infinity?

The view outside the window disappeared and rematerialized in the blink of an eye. Their childhood bedroom greeted them on the other side of consciousness. Pictures encased in opaque glass frames, and hardcover books lined the walls of the room, painted in abrasive, yet comforting shades of blue and red over the smooth concrete. On the desk was a small red notebook with poems they used to write every afternoon after coming back from school. There was a boy in the room as well. Toys were sprawled over the carpet, and the boy was crying. Both of them were 7 years old. The cactus-green carpet glowed in the midday light. They tried to grab the toys to hand them over to the boy. Their mouth opened in an attempt to voice words of reassurance, but all they could hear coming from their mouth was static, like a TV tuned to a dead channel. The boy was weeping louder still. An older woman rushed in and picked up the boy, trying to comfort him by patting his head.

What’s wrong sweetie?

The boy wept.

What’s going on?

In between cries and sniffles, the boy said: Why aren’t they smiling, mommy?! Why can’t they smile?!

The boy never came back to their room after that. His toys stayed on the floor, mixed and unidentifiable between theirs. A small TV was set up in front of the bed, and two controllers sat in the middle of the bed. One of the sticks didn’t work, they remembered, and they always gave that one to the boy to play with. Was it an off-brand? Did they break it? Did he ever play with it again? Did they ever play with it again?

The memory smelled of brownies.

They passed a hellstar: they couldn’t help but describe it as such in their mind. Flares of solar heat sprung out from the surface and struck the vessel, but it didn’t move, and if it did, they didn’t mind. The walls were hot.

A girl was in front of them. She held a tiny dandelion. The sky was orange, and it was 5:40 PM. The rhythmic thumping of a lawnmower’s motor remained constant in the background. A cello was playing from somewhere. They were in an empty classroom. They were both 10 years old. They were slumped over on their desk, reading a book they had borrowed from the library.

Neither said a thing.

It was pure silence, save for the rhythm of the lawnmower.

They found it calming.

She didn’t.

What are you reading?

They could feel their body willing itself to open its mouth, and utter any semblance of speech, but nothing came out. The girl watched on impatiently.

Her brow furrowed.

Even the idea of language felt too heavy a burden to carry. The noiselessness became hostile. The motor had stopped.

Fine! I won’t make you talk.

She left the dandelion on her desk and picked up her backpack. Why did you not say anything to him? He even gave you a little toy for your birthday.

A pause.

Everyone’s scared of you. Did you know that? They say you’re a robot, or a ghost. You’ve never smiled. The least you could do is smile.

They said something again, and this time the static forced its way out of his vocal cords and through his teeth, blasting out in the form of sound waves traveling the air. They were desperate. Imaginary hands reached out.

The girl scoffed. You can’t, huh?

This memory smelled of fresh-cut grass.

They remembered a poem they read once. They tried to bring words together in their mind to remember, but the text remained foggy. Was it even a poem? Maybe it was a movie. Yes, it was a movie. The scene was the sun shining in a dark sky, blindingly bright and ever-present. They couldn’t help but feel that this movie didn’t exist. Was it a book then? A novel? A short story? A random piece of paper found in restaurant tables? They remembered one of those. A napkin on the seat of the restaurant their parents took them to, that read in melancholic blue ink: Will I be alone forever?

Perhaps it was music. They remembered soft guitar strings by campfires. Catchy pop songs in large groups. Melancholic sonnets under golden moonlight. Nevertheless, again, they couldn’t help but feel that those sentences were false. Those things didn’t happen. But they could’ve. Though, what was the point of could’ves?

A sudden thunder. Lines of the poem formed like apparitions in their brain:

They tend to isolate themselves.

They are too alien.

Everyone is listening, no one is transmitting.

Human beings have not existed long enough.

Will we be alone forever?

Was it even a poem? Maybe it was fabrication. Perhaps a series of meaningless words stuck together in their mind from distinct sources. The thought of an old desktop computer on his childhood desk, smelling of dust, and rusted springs, emerged in their thoughts.

When was it that they left their home? Not the galaxy, not Earth, but their home? And why? To study, perhaps. To work, could be. To live, maybe. To find; absolutely. They realized it was the wrong question. The true question was: When did their home stop being their home?

Their father stood over the stove. Their mother poured lemonade into blue cups. The hitting of a knife against a chopping board filled the quiet afternoon with an aggressive melody. Their father hated onions, but brought himself to eat them regardless when they would ask for thinly cut sirloin with onions, always with a smile on his face.

They playfully sipped the lemonade from the cup and reveled in the sweet acidity of it. Meat sizzled and sparked in the cast iron pan their father used, and a light summer breeze entered through the open window. They were 12 years old.

Do you like the lemonade I made, honey?

Response. Static.

That’s great. A weak smile.

No response. Fuzzy. A motorcycle roared outside. A deep green leaf fell on his plate.

Their father: You should smile more, you look better when you do.

Everything smelled of onions.

A large, reddish-brown rock passed through the window of the vessel. Small fragments of stone struck the side of the metal walls, just enough to reverberate throughout. They were strapped onto a stiff mattress, and they had been for days. Was it days? Time had become unusually fluid. Long straws of glass-like substances flowed next to the passing rocks, forming kaleidoscopic patterns next to the window. Feather-like objects stuck to the side of the vessel, and large chunks of unknown metals battered the walls in short bursts. Yellow-gold strings appeared and disappeared at regular intervals, and giant rings of gas and plasma illuminated the black void. Hellstars would burst with sudden thunderous booms, making the floating vessel tremble sporadically. Flashes of purple-red light filled the darkness. Flames burst from the light, forming splendorous glass fragments - geometric abstractions in the shape of fractals, almost as if the very fabric of reality was breaking down.

Nothing happened for a while after that.

They were still strapped to the mattress.

The hard concrete below them was warm, and humid to the touch of their cheek, despite the snow around the roofed court. Standing before and above them was another boy. His knuckles were a velvet shade of red, and his face was flushed with adrenaline. The school uniform he wore was ruffled, and his tie was undone.

They were 17 years old.

They could hear the scrapping of a metal shovel picking up snow from the sidewalk a little ways from them.

They raised up the hand they were using to prop themselves up and realized the ground under it was slick with freshly drawn blood. Various textbooks were ripped and dismantled around them like corpses. A searing pain invaded their nose. They put their other hand to their upper lip, and it came back painted in red. A fragment of their canine was on the ground next to them.

You did it! You got in, didn’t you? The boy was shouting.

How does it feel? How does it feel to have gotten in? TELL ME!

They began to say static again before the boy's leg moved and hit them in the stomach.

You’re an expert at that, aren’t you? Taking things away from people. You make me sick. You’re a twisted freak.

Even though the sun was being blocked by gray clouds, they could tell it was the morning. People ran towards the two of them, horrified at the scene playing out before them. A teacher screamed the boy’s name. Another boy and a girl grabbed the boy by his arms, further wrinkling his blazer.

You beat me! Look at you with your name on the damn list!

They tried to force static out of their mouth with the same desperation as before, but nothing came out. The school bell began to ring.

Calm down, man. The other boy tried to calm the boy down. He ripped his arm away from the boy and girl.

You didn’t deserve to get in. I worked hard for even the chance to try for that place. You got in no problem, huh? You’re disgusting. I saw you in the morning, you know? I was standing next to you, bawling my goddamn eyes out. But you - you just saw your name and the little “congratulations” next to it and didn’t give two shits about it! No happiness, no satisfaction. Not even a single fucking SMILE! I was there in 4th grade, y’know? Everyone was so scared of you. Now, well, now you’re fucking pathetic.

The memory smelled of metal.

The vessel had gone dark a long time ago. No sounds from anything. The low moaning of engines had died down. No rocks struck the metal walls, no light-show provided spectacle. The mattress they were strapped to was nowhere to be found anymore. They closed their eyes, curled up in a fetal position, in hopes of thinking, of remembering anything. They thought of the notebook of poems on the desk of their room. In their mind, pages were flipped in anguish and dread, but despite it all, no words were identified. The act of writing was foreign, the art of words seemed insincere, and the desire to even attempt it was alien.

They thought of a poem.

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself.

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others.

Was it a poem, or was it a memory?

A scene was framed through blue-tinted glass. The street next to the lake was full of people. Young people, high schoolers wearing graduation togas, throwing their mortarboard caps into the air, the golden tassel on the side of them flailing around like majestic snakes.

They were 18 years old.

They stood behind the window, looking down on them from their bedroom on the second floor of the house. Music came from a speaker one of the students carried. Guitar riffs and synth seemed to invade every square meter of the area.

Their childhood bedroom was barren. The vibrant colors of the walls had been turned into darker, more muted shades. The large trunks of toys were gone, the bedsheets were drab, and the desk was practically empty. There were no books on the shelves. The little poem notebook was long gone. The mortarboard cap was placed loosely on their head by their mother, who had moved the little golden tassel from the right side to the left when she gave them their diploma in the living room downstairs. Neither their father nor their mother had been sad when they said they didn’t want to go to graduation, only a kind of melancholic understanding remained in their eyes, like this was expected.

The toga was thrown near the entrance to the bedroom, and the golden stole was lying wrinkled on the undone bed. They wore a t-shirt and shorts that they only realized were too small on them until after they had put them on. They looked like a parody of a human: a cheap imitation of a person in the most bitter-sweet moment of their adolescence.

Three people stared up from the street to the window, making them quickly duck down to avoid being spotted. It was the weeping-boy from before, now grown up and handsome, with a beard beginning to grow. It was the dandelion-girl, now pretty and defined. It was the uniform-boy, his knuckles had healed. They looked away and smiled towards the crowd walking past the house. Through the window, they recognized more people; the boy, and girl that had stopped the uniform-boy; the mother of the weeping-boy, taking pictures with a digital camera; people they knew from stories they wouldn’t tell - stories they didn’t want to remember. The crowd disappeared into the distance, rounding the street corner, and advancing with high steps towards the glimmering sights of the future. The street became silent again.

Their room smelled of dust.

The stars turned to hypersonic lines of lights as the vessel accelerated. They were holding on to the control panel, desperate to not fly off from the immense gravitational pull. The void was bursting with neon green, red, blue, and orange. Swarms of rocks hit against the windows. By this point, the world outside had turned a solid white. The laws of physics no longer applied. They slowly let go of everything.

A figure stood in front of them. The world around them was a shining enclosure of pure light. The figure’s silhouette stood tall, extending out their hand towards them. Lightning bolts of color struck out from it like static electricity. The figure was morphing and transforming all at once in a thousand shapes in a thousand ways in a single second. Was it a boy? A girl? Neither? Both? Their parents? Relatives? Friends? Loved ones? They reached towards the figure’s hand, trying to grasp it: that same desperation overtook their mind. The figure's hand met theirs. Their grip tightened. Worlds of earth and water rushed past them, and the figure began pulling them towards something. The white void fell away to reveal millions of shards of glass. The ground was wet soil. A leaf fell on their head. They knew what they were doing here now. They were sent to find.

Prove it wrong, they remembered, we will not be alone forever.

With a single blink, their body was lying on the ground, the distinctive feel of grass startled them. Soothing moisture covered it, and the air was clear and delicious. Something crawled on their hand, and they looked down to find an ant-like insect, though purple, with a single horn protruding from its head. A tongue met their right cheek, and they turned around to find a huge bipedal mammal, with the inflections of a dog mixed with the size of a giraffe. It was unlike anything they had ever seen, but it meant no harm. They petted the animal lightly, making it purr like a cat.

They stood up from the grass and looked up at the sky. The color was nostalgic, like the walls of their bedroom: of his home. How long had it been since they called it home? The sun glistened with a rich, yellow glow.

A clearing led into a forest of hazel-colored trees. Light reflected on small pebbles on the ground, making them look like gemstones. A path had been carved out in the dirt, with large stone bricks placed as markers. Everything cleared away, and they were met with a familiar sight.

It wasn’t a poem, it was a memory.

I’m not alone.

A graduation cap, broken toys, half-finished books, white onions, and blue cups of lemonade were semi-buried in the earth. Pillars of black and white onyx stood up-right like a gate. Emerald-green grass sprouted in between them.

It was a small, brown house by the lakeside. However distant it might’ve once been, it had always smelled of cilantro.