Lifelong Umami
by Bohdana Sereda

Some people find it strange to eat a tomato like an apple. Oh, how can I tell them it’s the smallest of strangenesses between the moment our world was born and another season of another show on a cable service rebranded to fit in with modernity?

Just imagine:

It’s a hot summer afternoon; you’re outside the city. Your grandma takes a midday nap, so you follow her, but you can’t contain your excitement. You can’t fall asleep when it’s so bright, and crickets cheerfully invite you to spend a few more minutes—or hours—in the grass, looking at leaves nonchalantly dancing with rare gusts of wind. You end up red just like a tomato your grandma brings from her garden after the nap. It’s so warm and shiny. You don’t yet know you have to wash your fruits and vegetables before eating them, so you happily pick up the tomato and bite it in half. Oh, how powerful the Sun is, to be so far and to give us this way to enjoy its love. Your mouth is now covered in what I think is tomato juice. You say, “Wow, Grandma, I can’t believe you grew this, this is soooo good.” You eat some more and go on with the rest of the day. At night, you look at the sky and see the Milky Way for the first time in your life. You think, “Wow, is this real, or is this a dream?”

Years later, you are still trying to figure out how you could see the stars in such high resolution without it being AI or something. And years later, you still remember that day, that tomato, that view of the galaxy from a front porch in a tiny village. The tomato was an even smaller dot than you, but it made you content for so long. Every time you go to a store and get groceries, you buy some tomatoes. Every time you bite a tomato, you taste a sprinkle of your favourite summer days.

A stranger looks at you and asks, “Why do you eat tomatoes so strangely?” You both laugh since it’s unlikely to be an insult, but you really don’t think it’s that weird. You wonder, “Has this stranger ever felt a hug from the universe?” You wish you could share your story, but it simply can’t fit in four walls and one sentence.