Tomato
Dearest tomato... Forgive me for I've praised you for more than what you promised.
Night, with her calm grace, had covered the skies above the fields where I live, cooling the air just enough for a breath. On this lazy, hot Mediterranean August day, where I could barely move, all I could manage was a few slices of watermelon. Only now, as the evening settled in, did I feel a sense of hunger and remember the tomatoes I had picked from Ismail's garden.
I had energy for only a few minutes away from the AC. Quickly, I prepared a simple yet beautiful plate of greens, olives, and cheese. I take aesthetic pleasure in even the simplest dishes I prepare, a momentary effort to remind myself that yes, I’m alive, here and now, and this is not to be taken lightly.
They say the devil is in the details. For me, the attention to these seemingly mundane details, in order to capture such fleeting moments of beauty, might just hold the meaning of life.
And so, even this simple plate I put together late at night—just for me to taste and see—had to look and taste beautiful, as an act of self-respect. Because it seems to be that I’m the only one whose day I’m truly able to save.
I sifted through the bag of tomatoes, inhaling the scent of each one. I searched for one that wasn’t too soft, wasn’t too hard, a little misshapen, with the perfect color. I found the one that was just right and set it on the counter.
I placed two slices of sourdough bread on the iron pan to heat up. The rising smell of warm toast, without fail, evokes and fulfills an almost spiritual appetite, what feels like a precursor hug to my senses of what is yet to come.
The inside had to be spongy, with a slight crisp on the outside. Soft enough to absorb the juices of the tomato without hurting the roof of my mouth, yet sturdy enough to hold its shape.
Once the bread was ready, I drizzled it with some of my ceremonial cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil—golden Aegean nectar oozing slow and beautiful. Then I stacked the tomato slices, added a bit more olive oil, and topped it off with Maldon salt. With utmost care and gentle choreography, I placed the cheese and olives around the plate, making sure to honor the tomato as the hero it deserved to be.
Moving with a similar viscosity to the olive oil in the heat, I went back under the AC, stretched my legs out on the couch, and placed the plate on my lap. I must admit, I looked at it for a good moment with pride, admiration, anticipation, and joy.
I closed my eyes as the bread neared my mouth, the smell of Aegean earth filling my senses, and took the first bite.
At that moment, a prayer rose within me with aching urgency: please, please bury me in the earth when I die. Let me entwine with the ants, with the roots, within this smell. Perhaps I might grow into a perfect summer tomato, soaking up the honeyed rays of the summer sun, the scent of the soil, and someday fall onto a slice of bread on a hot summer night.
And if I become such a tomato, and someone places me on their slice of bread, closes their eyes, and tastes life in that moment… Ah, then my life will not have been in vain. My life will have found its purpose: in service of this beautiful, vital, and ephemeral satisfaction, as a tomato in someone’s life.
