The Magical Skillet

As a young boy, I grew up near the coast. I followed my mother around her kitchen and she would feed me. Now I have to wait, sitting on the glossiness of the tiled floor. I watch her spin the comal and watch as droplets of clear water fall from her fingers and into the hot skillet. I like to hear them sizzle and dance on the heat. I like it even more when that dance is followed by the flow of rice, the tumbling of onion slices, and the plopping of tomato extract. Little by little the skillet allows the blending of all ingredients into a new and wholesome flavor. A flavor that brings me back to life for the briefest of moments. A moment that is euphoric and equivalent to water dancing on the surface of a hot comal.

Nowadays I sit very still, as quietly as I can, beside my mother. She mixes fleshy elastic dough and flattens it with the soft edges of her palms. Always leaving a string of hand lines and wrinkles on the moist dough. I wait on the floor and admire the eternal glossiness of the tiles, and she waits for her dough to harden and set. I work to make myself imperceivable but sometimes, in the moments between the waiting and her breathing, I stir, and she feels my presence. Then she shakes her head as if to wake herself up, letting herself return to the real silence in her kitchen. Until I feel she has finished the meal, I don’t dare raise my voice to any level above the kitchen counter top. She works so diligently and I sit so quietly by her side.

When Mother has finished with her kitchen and moves to leave, I can watch her no more. She moves forward to go, but I stay still. All I can do is let my eyes follow the back of her head the way she once tracked my childish movements around the house. I have no choice but to wait for breakfast to see her again.

I know she has changed, and I see how wrinkles decorate her face. I notice how time decorates the walls of her beloved kitchen. Even the glossy floor can’t escape the surface cracks brought on by time. Time will soon make me just another kitchen adornment, another crevice on the floor. I will be happy to sit in her kitchen, anticipating the appearance of the magical skillet that makes water dance.

Tomorrow, before entering her kitchen, she will stop to have a look at the picture on the wall. She will see a small boy, with eyes so similar to hers, captured inside an old wooden frame. A child in red shorts, with cinnamon skin, smiling on, as sand sticks to the bottom of his wet feet. She will let long tears drip into her skillet and turn to salt in the heat of it all. Then she will cook, and I will look on.