What Remains

I was walking down the street when it hit me. Memories. It began with the smell— freshly fried chicken. Isn’t it strange how memories are so entangled with smell?

Then, like a wave, it carried me in with it.

It took me back to an old food spot where we used to go as kids. Stone paved paths. Reddish brown brick walls. Warm yellow lights.. My order was always the same— fried chicken.

Now, it’s gone. Without leaving any trace of a building which stood there for years.

They couldn’t demolish the memories, though. But what happens to the flavours?

What happens to those familiar flavours when the place or the person who made them is not here anymore?

Do the flavours die too?

Even if we try to recreate the recipe, will it ever taste the same? Even once?

Those biriyanis achamma made, always slightly undercooked because she worried too much about overdoing the rice— how do I ever get that taste back?

Where will I go when I want to taste it one last time?

Of all losses, this is the worst. The loss of the familiar.

And here we are, stuck in an endless loop of familiarising the strange, only to lose it again someday.