Memories in Mortar ft Garlic

Song in writer's head while writing

A clove of garlic is plucked off the bulb by chef’s human hands. The hands drop the singular clove onto Mortar and Pestle, a granite kitchen behemoth feared by many a spice. The clove falls on Pestle and begins to cling on to this relatively gigantic cylinder for dear life. The ridges of the stone tool caused a little friction burn on Garlic’s underbelly, and yet, he hangs on to it, unable to resign to his impending fate.

Chef, donning her floral pink nightie, turns on her kitchen radio. Once an announcement is finished, a jeweller’s jingle begins, after which the RJ receives a song dedication request from a sappy lorry driver for his wife at home. She dials up the volume when the RJ switches to a tuneful melody led by a mysterious stringed instrument. She begins to forget the next steps of her planned pepper soup-making, as she slides a pointed toe out on the marbled flooring, her hands waving about slowly but rhythmically. The strong smell of onion on her fingertips didn’t bother her as she moved her fingers across her face. The chopping board with the half sliced onion stands in abandon.

Garlic is now starting to get used to this suspension. He hears an eerie growl from below, coming from Mortar, as the Pestle rotates slightly against the ribbed stone surface. It very very slowly, but surely, attempts to shake Garlic off. Garlic is now aware of this provocation and he rubs his underbelly more roughly against Pestle’s surface, tearing its papery outer layer to open up friction wounds. Instead of blood, a sticky protein called allicin oozes out from his guts, cementing his grip further onto Pestle’s surface. “Stop moving!” Garlic’s childlike voice reaches the base of Mortar. Pestle, now both in annoyance and shock, stops in its rough tracks. It becomes still.

“Boy, you need to get in there, right in the centre,” a hoarse voice responds to Garlic’s command. “There is so much more for me out there to see,” Garlic replies, sticky allicinic tears now brimming his large eyes.

Mortar opens her wizened eyes, going against the granite grain she is constructed from. Her features slowly emerge, unveiling tightly pursed lips and eyebags that look like they are actively fighting against time and gravity to hold their shape. She sports a reddish dot on her forehead, just above the space between her eyes, the mark of nuptial splendour. She releases her words, painfully but slowly: “Child, I have seen it all. I’m still seeing it all. I will continue seeing it all, even long after you and the humans are gone. Long gone. Trust me, you are better off pursuing your next birth, it’s a fortune I am not bestowed with.”

Garlic, like many plants in the Veggies Reimagined universe, holds the power of positive-leaning reincarnation whereby one’s demise is temporary and is simply a changeover of bodies. If Garlic fulfils his destiny by dispensing deliciousness in the pepper soup he’s about to be served in, he will be granted a new body. Perhaps a body that will allow him better mobility. However, granite stone parts like Mortar and her partner Pestle, are not essentially alive nor dead. And yet, they possess some mysterious propensity to observe and communicate with select beings, usually for advisory reasons, like to help this young Garlic to move on to the next stage of his existence.

“Mortar, you remind me of my own shrivelled grandma. You seem wise, and yet you are reluctant to let me just be for a little while longer. Why should I move on?” Garlic asks earnestly.

Mortar produces gargling sounds from within as she clears her parched throat. She is in desperate need of at least a splash of water, which she would expect chef to oblige her with before she crushes Garlic with coriander seeds, pepper and cumin seeds to make the pulp needed to brew the heartwarming soup. But she wants to help Garlic understand where he stands in the next chain of actions.

“Garlic, boy, if you don’t partake in this soup today, you will become black aphid food. I can already see them swarming that poor rose blossom on the window sill, it won’t be long before they realise you are fair game. If you get eaten by aphids, you will be born as garlic again. If you escape and rot into the ground, you will probably be born as garlic again. If you get eaten by a mouse, you will perhaps be born as another plant, like either a lily, or something with more trunk strength like a rose.

'“You’ve got a long chain of births before you’d get anywhere close to self attainment. But, if you perform a verifiable service, like being human medicine the way you will be used in the soup today, you will be handsomely rewarded. I’ve seen many of your ancestors boy. I’ve seen many of them pursuing unthinkable births, like one of your grand uncles even became a human once. I’ve seen a few garlic souls achieving self attainment and actually progressing to the bright, blinking stars themselves. Such is the nature of life. Boy, don’t you want to see the stars?” Mortar asks.

“I don’t know, never thought it was possible,” Garlic answers meekly. His allicin has now dried up and hardened, forming a glue-like residue that could support his entire weight. Now he could relax his tissues to comfortably suspend himself on Pestle without expending much, if any, effort. “Mortar, how old are you? What is the most remarkable thing you have seen?”

Mortar rolls her eyes at Garlic’s question. “Boy, I am more than a thousand years old. More than a hundred years ago, I was shaped on the roadside of an ancient human village in Chennai, India. Before I was shaped, I was formed as part of a magnanimous granite hill which was part of the Nilgiri mountains in the Western Ghats. I grew up watching elephant herds roaming the nearby jungles, playing in the resplendent tropical downpour that often graced us mountain ranges. I grew up seeing bluish rocks in my vicinity, hundreds of birds and insects and everything imaginable that was living and breathing around me. Sometimes, the effects of being able to tune in to the breath cycles of an infinite number of beings at once are simply mesmerising. I would sometimes just close my eyes and meditate on these cacophony of whisper-like oxygen intakes and they would feel as though a million feathers were brushing against my body. ‘Frrfrrfrrrfrrr….whoosh..whooosh….frrrrrrfrr…..hrrrmmmphhh….hufff….ssss….sshhhhhhhh….hhhhhuh……..’,” Mortar begins making inscrutable noises from her tightly pursed lips, using her now extremely hoarse vocal chord.

Garlic’s mind is now wandering off into a reverie of its own, imagining murmuration-like patterns undulating softly, on purpose, exhibiting the state of living in all manner of shapes and sizes. He awakens from this mental detour as Pestle stirs again, now almost determined to make Garlic feel at least a pinch as he is wedged between Pestle and the rough edges of Mortar. Mortar harrumphs, signaling her husband to stop terrorising poor Garlic. Pestle becomes still again.

Satisfied, Mortar now continues, becoming immersed in her own immortal memories. “I was somehow moved across the seas to the verdant hills of Malaysia. This was where I encountered my most remarkable memory. Once, I sat with old Indian human ladies who were making spice-laden preparations for one of their very many festive occasions. One of the ladies stood up to check on her sleeping infant who was snoozing inside a makeshift cradle fashioned from a bright yellow saree. She then let out an alarming scream, followed by a series of uncontrollably loud sobs. She punched herself in her lower abdomen with loosely curled up fists, unleashing tears of frustration. The infant had disappeared.

“All the ladies then abandoned their preparation stations to tend to the urgent matter at hand. A number of these women ran out of their house with their buns still done up in a wispy, casual knot. Shortly, some of their husbands turned up wielding machetes. One particularly rotund man with a curiously curly moustache bellowed at everyone in the house, announcing an impending carnage which subtly targeted a neighbourhood family.

“Whispers then reached me that this was a child kidnapping orchestrated by some jealous perpetrators to seek revenge. You see, Boy, I listen to a lot of these human stories as most of them were intensely discussed by the ladies in the kitchen, especially when more than five of them congregated to cook bigger meals for weekly gatherings. I had an inkling of the perpetrator’s motive. Months ago, some deluded rascals had committed arson on the neighbour’s attap roof weaved with Nipah palm leaves. I guess they were bored teenagers. This incident very tragically led to the injuring of one of the toddlers who was caught in the fire, but I heard she survived with minor burns.

“The neighbours were then absolutely certain that one of the young boys in my house were the culprits, with no real evidence. I am however this boy’s unspeaking alibi, as he was dutifully grinding curry paste for one of his grandmothers around the time of the crime. However, the neighbours were convinced he was guilty, more so because he had previously beaten up one of their own resident rascal boys who attempted to push a young girl into the river, just for laughs. The neighbours then proceeded to verbally and physically harass our boy and his mother who vehemently defended him against nasty accusations piled against him.

“An hour later, I heard loud bangs and crashes. A feud now had begun between the family I was with and their now fuming neighbours who were probably further inflamed by fresh new accusations. I believe the women, the men, the teenagers, were all fighting at the neighbour’s house. The name-callings became louder, heightening to pitches I’d previously never heard emanate from humans.

The tensions roiled up to such a state that even the skies could be heard whispering among themselves, debating as to whether they should try to abate the situation. One gigantic cumulonimbus cloud rushed fervently forward and unleashed a downpour, which appeared to further intensify this conflict. One of the old ladies, defeated, drenched in the rainwater, rushed indoors. She submitted herself to the kitchen, dropped to the floor against the wall and hunched over her knees, covering her soaking white-haired head with her clenched fists. She sobbed inconsolably.

“A thunderous roar then emerged, with lightning ricocheting everywhere like maddened firecrackers. A VERY loud, inhuman sound was heard, a call far too familiar to me. It was a loud, musically pleasing announcement that arrested the fighting crowd.

“To mine and the old lady’s astonishment, an enormous and long, black snake appeared to clumsily float mid-air, entering the living room with a motion that could be interpreted as one containing heavy but precise movements. What appeared to be attached to it was even more shocking. It was the head of an elephant, moving very slowly and methodically as to avoid any upset. The elephant tactfully entered the house, painfully aware of its own size and magnanimity. The old lady in the kitchen almost fell again on the slippery floor as she stood upright from her squat-like stance to manically run to the living room. She screamed once in fear and confusion. Then she screamed another time, even more loudly, but this time, in expression of confusion, excitement, relief and joy.

“The elephant had brought the lost infant back from the apparent kidnapping, carrying her using the carefully coiled end of its trunk, shielding her from the rain using one of its flappy ears drawn forward like a very shoddily made elephantine umbrella. The elephant lowered the giggling infant to the old lady, who embraced her amid gulps of tears, before it carefully retreated itself from the house.

“That my friend, was the most remarkable memory in my life. Me, who has seen it all, the mountains, the skies, the conversations between trees, the destruction of man, the horrors of wars. And yet, this scene is the only one from my very long life that I hold extremely dear. I absolutely love elephants,” Mortar concludes.

Garlic eyes are now wide with wonder. He didn’t understand half of the things Mortar narrated to him. What was an attap? What was a cloud? What’s an elephant? What’s a child? What was India, what was Malaysia? A series of whats enveloped his young mind. Although undecipherable, Mortar’s story was told with such enthusiasm and passion, despite her constantly hoarse and moisture-starved throat, that her raw emotions infected Garlic. “There is SO much I need to see,” he now concurs to Mortar’s earlier suggestion. “Mortar, I am ready to drop myself into your centre. I want to see the world, and for that, I need to be transported to a variety of bodies.”

Mortar carves a weak smile, now exhausted from her mentally vigorous trip down memory lane. “Yes child, go now. Safe trip, and don’t worry. You will have a whale of a time!” A stalk of curry leaves who was placed adjacent to Mortar has been working hard all this while to expel almost microscopic amounts of water droplets from its cells into the granite walls of Mortar’s body to replenish her thirst a little. Its dark green leaves now cheer Garlic on. They call out with tiny squeaky voices, saying: “All the best Garlic! See you on the other side!”