Somewhere in the corridor of forgotten spices, I tasted jasmine-infused honey on its journey back to the stars. Time trails behind flavors, as meals linger longer than the ingredients that make them. Am I writing in the past, present, or future? The taste comes before the thought, isn't it?
Between the clock's chimes, there appeared a plate of roasted quail, kissed by the air of revolutionary Paris. Butter, eggs, and the whisper of garlic, binding the present to a past that never claimed ownership. "Are we dining or delving into history?" was the question unasked, unanswered.
Outside the grid of the temporal web, flavors collide. I stand on the edge of an ancient marketplace, negotiating with stardust merchants for the rights to cinnamon long lost in the folds of space and time. He offers memories of the morning sun, but I desire something deeper—which flavor tells the night best?
The sound of boiling water is a hymn I forgot to memorize. It echoes in the hallways of my grandmother's kitchen, a place where futures materialize out of delicate aromas. She stirred the pot without care for the clock, and in that moment there was no time—only boiling thoughts and simmering stardust.
And so I write, perhaps cooking or contemplating or simply being—in a moment that belongs neither to the past nor the future but exists solely for itself in its delicate, fleeting flavor.