Written during…

The long summer of 2025 that never seemed to reach fall.

She would always tell others that when she was young, her nickname was Onion. 

“Onion.”

It rolled of the tongue, the two Os creating a chamber of air in one’s mouth. Try saying it slow, savoring how your tongue moves in sequence, and you start swallowing that tiny bubble of air that gets trapped in between your tongue and the top of your mouth. 

It was a reenactment in itself, you speak out, but you also spoke in. 

No one actually called her that, she just never thought the other names worked. 

They had called her mushroom when she got a bob for the first time, but that stopped making sense when her hairstyle changed. 

Her childhood name had been Kitty, she chose it herself because she liked cats. It did truly belong to her, but it was a phase of life meant only for people she trusted, so she never said that as well. 

Other names went by, she tried them on like clothes in the dressing room. None fits, so she never bought any. 

People then asked, “Why Onion? What’s the reason?”

She would just laugh and say that’s a story for another time. 

She loved to compare people to things. She would describe her friend’s new boyfriend to be “like a goat, not that he looks like a goat, he just reminds me of a goat. You know? The ones in that documentary that stands on the near vertical side of the dam trying to lick up salt, those ones.” Unlike the goats, he slipped one day and disappeared from her life. It wasn’t that big of a deal, her friend’s next boyfriend was like a bowl of mediocre pho. 

Her mom was like a ceramic bowl, or a charcuterie board. Her father was like an old clock that is still on time. Her best friend was 2 brow piercings, silver. 

However, she could never describe herself. She started trying 5 years ago. She wanted to find an explanation for herself, for the reasons behind her existence. The only people who would ask her that question were people who would likely only know her once, and she learned that they didn’t need a real answer, just one that makes sense. These answers were like the birthday gift you gift to that acquaintance who you’ve known for years but never got close with: something somewhat expensive, unique enough that it is not cliche, but also a courtesy less than a gift. 

She never had an answer.

She had gone to the market one afternoon. It was a sunny and hot, the air felt tepid and a bit slow, with small gusts of wind that seem to remember September was supposed to be an autumn month. 

It was usual for her to go the farmer’s market on Saturdays, usually around 11am. She wakes up quite late, and her own schedule of leaving at 11am always prompts her to leave the house in the same clothes as last week. She always dreams about making an effort on these Saturdays, to look movie-esque while doing such a movie-esque activity, but she never does. 

Thus, it was weird that she went to the market one afternoon, on a Sunday. She had been writing that Saturday, and the heat did nothing to help her head, so she stayed in with the tomatoes in her fridge that should have been gone by then. She still had 3 huge ones left. They stared her down the whole day, and she replaced her market schedule with eating two of the tomatoes and secretly putting one on in the hallway by her neighbor’s potted plants. 

Her friend had called that morning, her name, starting with the letter A, was the first name saved in her contacts. They didn’t call much, texting was another matter. As they lived in different countries, time lapsed texts are like eternal voicemails. Sometimes with long distance friends, one loses track of their reality, for they become equal parts a figment of memory and a figment of imagination; but only sprinkles of evidence is needed to prove their existence to a convinced jury. Her friend had a vibrant life, or so she thought. Her friend knew what she wanted, felt acutely, loved love, though she sometimes was troubled by how passionate her friend was about things. Those moments made her feel less real, like she was only a shell, wondering about her emptiness. She often thought about what was she made of, if she had something hidden inside her, a meaning perhaps, that she could just peel away and reveal one day. 

The market was not very crowded by Sunday afternoon, the crowds had dwindled, and stalls were closing for the weekend. She brought a mesh bag, her first time using it. She bought shallots and eggs, a loaf of bread from her favorite bakery stand (though the specialty breads had all been purchased), and she stopped at a vegetable stand. There were red and white onions, she usually preferred the white ones, but she picked up a red one as well that afternoon. It’s purpleish skin a bright spot of color in her bag.

When she got back, she went to her kitchen, washed her hands and the red onion, and began peeling it. 

She wanted to get to the center of the onion, to see what it was like. It was as if the center held some sacred truth, the true identity of the onion, that perhaps at the center, there would be more to the onion than its appearance, an explanation. 

It was a never-ending onion. She peeled layers and layers off, the clock turning from 5pm to a quarter to 6. The onion was never ending. The skin stuck in her fingernails, and the pungent taste stuck to her fingerprints. She didn’t use a knife because she had a sudden fear of the knife slipping on the rubbery surface to her fingers. She wanted to get to the center, not to open it up. 

Layers, Layers, Layers. 

The onion seemed to shrink then grow bigger again. The brittle skins that had crumbled upon touch were stacked at the end of the cutting board. She tried to wash her hands, the skin became slippery on touch. She dried her hands, the rubbery cling then seemed to marinate into her fingers. 

Layers, Layers, Layers. 

The onion was never ending. 

The moon has risen and the few stars she could see from her metropolitan windows twinkled lightly. The onion still had layers unpeeled. The center seemed unreachable. It should not be like this. It should have been an easy task: peel the onion to its center. 

Her neighbors closed their light and drawn in their blinds. The onion still had layers unpeeled.

Her cat napped on the kitchen counter, as the night birds stopped singing and the air stilled. The onion still had layers unpeeled.

The garbage truck that came after midnight rumbled gently as its huge machinery unloaded the trash from the trash cans. The onion still had layers unpeeled. 

Layers, Layers, Layers.

By then, it was almost dawn. Her mouth had a weird aftertaste, like that spicy pungency that stuck to one’s tongue after eating raw onions. Her fingers puffed up slightly from the constant contact. She finally put the onion down. 

The onion sat on her kitchen counter for 3 days. Her hands itched to peel the skin again, but she stopped herself. The onion seemed slightly smaller than when she first bought it. It did not have a bothering smell like the smell onions have after they were cut open. 

She couldn’t get to the center because there isn’t a center. The layers will never end if the search is for the center. It was not a shell, not empty because it had no center. One could be philosophical and argue that what values for the onion are its layers, and perhaps the process of peeling and using them was its purpose. Put simply, an onion is just an onion. It cannot be more than itself because it is simply an onion, self-fulfilled in its identity. 

She left the onion sitting on the windowsill. It withered as its skin dried, from that vibrant purple to a maroon-ish purple red. It sits silently, not resisting or forcing an explanation, just existing, skin rustling ever so slightly if a gust blows by. 

If anyone ever was interested enough to ask twice for the story behind the name “Onion”, she would point to the onion on her windowsill, now irregularly shaped from having constant sunlight on only one side, and say, “Don’t you see the resemblance?”