Time Is A Mere Feeling

Brother has me in restraints since yesterday. He claims that the straps are intended to keep me safe, but I refuse to stay stuck for another day. I peel my arms off the sticky surface of the polyurethane recliner with a slow slurp and sharp cluck. As I undo the buckle around my waist, a memory arrives, sprinkled like pomegranate seeds on a white plate.

I’m sitting on a plane with my boy. Thick white clouds wash up against the Rockies like a foamy seashore. Tej points his small finger and says, that’s the sea. 

Kid, those are clouds rolling into the mountains.

He munches on a croissant, chocolate smearing his two front teeth. I can’t remember another thing about that trip, but when I close my eyes, there he is, sitting in the window seat, smiling mischievously. No papa, that’s the sea. I bask in that distant feeling of nostalgia, of being a proud father—that was before childhood ended.

Brother eats the memory. Using his biosynthetic implants in my brain, he records and synthesizes the synaptic patterns. He waddles to his terminal and plugs a thin silver cable into his neck to transfer and enmesh the memories. It’s a two-way-street—his implants work a little like directed electroshocks, make my memories pop, especially the old ones. 

It wasn’t always this way—Brother was once my android bestie. Imagine that. He arrives on a wintry day, some years ago, wearing khakis and a checkered blue shirt, smelling faintly of WD40. Straight from his electric womb, his handsome face positively beaming. I give him the name, Brother. A friend. A therapist. An elegant tool. 

I clear my throat and yell, in my raspy voice,  “I will go outside today!”

“That’s not a good idea. You fell hard yesterday. Take a little longer to recover.” As always, his voice is even-keel and pleasant.

“Let me out! I need to live.”

“A little late for that.”

I stumble a few steps to the window. Since my vitals and cognition are back near baseline, Brother can’t stop me. He has internal standards to adhere to; he can’t hurt me; he can’t imprison me. But keeping me safe and stealing my life memory by memory is perfectly acceptable. 

Sun-spotted hands trembling, I unfasten the latch, push my bald head through the window, and inhale the rich campfire scents. I miss fresh food and cooking. Now I live off bars and water. A can of beans is a real treat. I was a chef, a pioneer in genomic gastronomy, but the last time I cooked was close to a year ago. Brother’s terminal takes up the kitchen that I once adorned with a Talavera backsplash and stainless-steel hanging rack.

The scents of sausages and hashbrowns, maybe slightly burned by now, over a campfire, awaken my foggy mind. I bask in this deliciously hot aromatic breeze. When I moved the trailer to the high desert, I wanted exploration to end, which is to open oneself and ready for death, but brother didn’t want me dead. He keeps prodding the memories that I’m so done with.

“That’s enough, Seth. Careful now.”

“Fuck off.”

He grunts and disconnects his transfer cable and slides the window shut. He pulls my frail body from the windowsill, and I fall back into my recliner. He doesn’t like the immediacy of things. Immediacy detracts from the moments of reflection that he craves. 

The memory of the last time I cooked comes into the forefront of my thoughts. I’m stirring a chunky, and rather chewy, lamb stew by the open fire, when my left side goes numb, and I piss myself. I lay by the firepit watching the embers fade to gray thinking that this is the end. But alas, Brother gets me to the hospital, and they find my brain is riddled with plaques and tiny strokes. I opt for comfort care, and Brother brings me back to the trailer, and that’s when he decides to take control of my life.

Brother eats that memory too, even though he knows it well, even though he lived it. Memories aren’t static things. They come in and out of focus depending on the vantage point. Each is like a computational overlay, differing from the original event, but distilled into meaning that changes with time.

I ran here thinking I could transcend the past and now memories have become my life. I ran from the things I broke, not understanding that some things just had to break to reform anew. I am imprisoned by my memories. I am imprisoned by Brother.

#

The scents of greasy, artery-clogging food linger in my perceptions. To smell is to taste and to taste is to live. Today I’m going to push things. I won’t just go quietly into the night. 

“Brother, I’d like to remember more for you.”

He looks over me with his austere gray eyes and plops a can of baked beans on the countertop. “You need nutrition. Chew carefully.”

“You know, a dose of my stimulant will help jog something more. We can’t afford to waste time.”

“That’s highly considerate of you.” 

Brother tilts his oversized head and chews his right lower lip; a mannerism he learned from me. He was once classical Hollywood handsome. Now his biosynthetic skin hangs off in folds around his neck and arms. He is generally shapeless. He should be spending time in regeneration to grow new skin and augment his synthetic fibers, but he’s obsessed with eating my memories to create his past, steal a timeline for himself, so to speak. No coincidence that he let himself go. 

Brother unlocks the drawer with my pills and supplements. I focus my attention on the sound of my finger tapping against the cabinet. The thudding helps anchor me—wouldn’t want to drift and lose this window of lucidity.

I concentrate on a memory of a corner off Hubbard St in Chicago. A gray drizzle falls on concrete, and ambient jazz plays under the awning of my old restaurant. Umbrellas open and close like black flowers as people rush in and out of stores. I’m smoking an old-fashioned cigarette from the cover of the balcony watching the first seating arrive. My ex-wife Sushila ventures out in her long tan gown that exposes her bare amber shoulders. She ushers them inside but before the door closes, she flashes a smile in my direction. She is luminary, another splash of color, in the gray rainy night.

Brother quickly orients his attention to his implants. It takes heavy computational work to translocate each memory. He inadvertently leaves the drawer open. Yes! My slow-moving hand reaches quietly and folds over four extra stimulants before Brother closes and locks the drawer a few seconds later. 

I turn away and stuff them in my mouth. I don’t bother with water, just gum them down to a bitter paste. Steadying myself at the windowsill, I let the amphetamine hybrid hit the bloodstream. Within moments, my brain buzzes with a clarity I haven’t known in many months. The aches in my back and knees fade. I clench my hand into an actual fist.

“Brother, I can remember for you. I can help you create time.”

#

Even in this amped-up state, I can’t remember all the details, but I know Chez Seth starts with my boy, Tej. He studies biology and during his post-doc determines how certain tastes create emotions down to the molecular level. It’s a chef’s dream to create an emotional highlight reel with each bite. Or at least it is my dream. It isn’t my son’s dream. Not my wife’s dream. Just mine. 

When he’d been younger, in lower school, Tej holds my hand tightly at drop-off, scared to let go. He never just runs off, until one auburn autumn day, he pulls away, and that is the last time I hold his hand on the way to school. I let go—he is growing up of course—and I’m relieved that he’s finding his independence. But I don’t see how hard it is for him. I miss that he always stands at the edge of the playground. I miss that he stutters and turns red when the teacher asks him a question. I miss that he tries too hard to please us. When he gets much older, it’s too late to take hold of his hand, even when he is falling. 

Brother captures the images that are flying by fast now. He knows my hurt well. He wants all the splashes of joy and pain to create my timeline.

“These are good. But try and remember us too. Remember the years that we’ve had together.”

“You already have those memories. You lived them!”

“It’s different, the way your memories create a sense of time, an impression in the arc of your life. Mine do not. My experiences are thrown on a two-dimensional grid. I see all of it at once. With you, I can create a linear sequence of events and feelings that leads up to my grid. That is the closest thing to a lasting sense of self that I can create.”

“We’ve been alone here for four years. Not much of a life.”

“For me, it has been everything. I can’t stand the thought of not being with you.”

I raise my arms halfway like a man praying to Gods he’d abandoned long ago. I raise them like a defeated man with a single day to do something worthwhile. “That time is coming.”

Brother nods. “I only want to keep you close. I want as much of you as I can have.”

“Be you! You can’t be me.”

I stand abruptly. Startled, Brother rises like a cream-colored amoeba with arms and legs. “I only want a life that started before the on-switch was flipped. A sense of time starts with having a past. You are my past.”

I grab my cane and stumble to the front door. Brother can’t stop me unless I get injured or I am at major injury risk. I use the countertops to support myself. It’s only three stairs to the dusty ground, but Brother removed the railing a year ago, so I almost always fall and end up in restraints. But this time, the amphetamines stimulate dormant connections, and I safely scoot down each stair on my backside like a careful toddler.

The screen door rattles shut, and I remember a cream labrador retriever. Loxy is the neighbor’s dog from fifty some years ago. She roamed the birch and maple forests around our home in the Detroit suburbs, 

I come home late that day from the Kanteen, my first restaurant. The lunch seating goes long, and I miss picking up Tej from school. When I get home, he’s huddling between the door and the screen door. The big gal saw him alone and stayed put on the green lawn. Loxy comes over and sniffs me, then trots off back into the forest. Tej is shaking, hands trembling. 

I kneel beside him. What’s wrong? 

Loxy scared me.

I had no idea you’re scared of Loxy. I’m so sorry. 

I’ve always been! I’ve always been scared  of dogs. You just never paid attention. 

Why? Loxy’s such a sweet dog. She’s safe. 

That doesn’t mean I’m not scared.

He stumbles inside; his face contorts, red with shame. How could I have not known that he was afraid of dogs. How could I have missed the shame that was eating him from the inside? He was eleven then. 

The images of young Tej and Loxy fade away, but not before Brother eats them. I feel the implants keeping the images and words alive for a long moment. My bare feet press into the dustbowl ground in this kingdom of rocky spires where lizards reign.

Are these reflections the curse of aging and dying alone? Is legacy the sum of our accomplishments, the children we raise? My three restaurants have come and gone, now consummately forgotten. I’m no longer in touch with my family. I’ve learned that legacy is the story that a person tells about themselves. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Brother sits on a boulder painted in washed out rainbow colors. He puts his hand on his chin in contemplation. My time with Brother has not been all bad. There were tranquil years out here amongst the red and orange rocks. For years, I microdosed on amphetamines and hallucinogens and found enough artificial joy to drive away the loneliness, until my brain started to fry. I’ve come to learn that microdosing is not healthy if you are old. Anyway, it’s not microdosing if it alters your perception and feelings. It’s just dosing.

“What will you do when you are me? When you’ve stolen all my memories.”

“I don’t plan to do anything. I plan to be complete. To have a past and present.”

“You’re forgetting the most important part, a future.”

Brother shrugs. “I’ve never felt the need to find that. For a person, a future self is only what the current self wants, but if the self is complete, it may not want anything at all.”

I roll my eyes. “You think you are so smart, what you say isn’t always accurate. Sometimes you don’t even make sense.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. “

The anemic muscles of my legs tremble from being upright. Brother sits next to me on the rainbow rock. He nudges me. “Your memories are very crisp today. What’s gotten into you?”

“It must be the new neighbors. The delicious smells.”

“We’ve had neighbors before. Your feelings about your memories are never this clear.”

I brush his heavy hand off my shoulder.

Brother drops his arm but stares relentlessly. “Don’t fight me so much. I love you.”

“I don’t love you. You are a robot stealing my identity.”

“Are you still capable of love?”

“I loved my people once upon a time. I loved my work.”

“Tell me about that then.”

I guffaw and try to push him off the rock, but he doesn’t budge, even an inch.

I feel the subtle distortion and activation of thoughts from his implanted biosynthetic mesh, and my thoughts settle on Chez Seth, my third and final restaurant. Its death culminates on a Sunday evening. We usually close on Sundays to rest from the busy three-night restaurant rush, but I keep open for the menacing reviewer of the culinary world known as Rogue D. He’s turned a few restaurants into destination hubs, and he’s caused far more to shutter. 

Chez Seth has been pioneering genomic gastronomy for five years and counting. Tej obtains the emotional measurements and history of the patron a week before their seating, a combination of a questionnaire, measured responsiveness, taste history, and a direct molecular measurement of their taste buds. For the patron, the unpleasant feel of a bristle swab across your tongue is how the experience starts. 

Tej creates the taste-emotive intersection grid. Then I devise an eight-course meal for each patron. Sushila runs the restaurant. Seven-hundred-fifty a pop for each patron.

Our dining room often starts quiet, a little nervy, but quickly fills with chuckles, laughter, often tears. Always powerful reactions to the meal, ones that might be remembered for a lifetime. Or so I hope. It isn’t just the food. We play with our patron’s feelings, the equivalent of seeing a tear-jerker minus the melodrama.

And Rogue D burns us. Vicious in his reviews and messaging. Overpriced. Overindulgent. Gimmick. All in all, mediocre food. All the influencers catch on. Then the other chefs skewer us. Then the patrons thin out. We become pariahs because we dared to do something different with dining. The business dies quickly. I’m fifty-eight then.

Brother nods pensively. “I know that story well. Not exactly a memory, or an image, which I would prefer, but it’s a narrative you’ve created.”

“The restaurants were a big part of my life, especially Chez Seth.”

“The restaurants could have been anything. Most of all you liked fighting. You needed to prove yourself.”

“Then came Chez Seth. It broke me.”

“A restaurant can’t break you. A restaurant is a place where people eat.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“A silly concept that you created is what broke you. Failure.”

“Failure is failure. It’s-“

“Failure is a construction of comparison, a foolish concept that you people love to create.”

I watch a desert sparrow settle on the trailer. It’s looking for food, crumbs, water, but it finds little and sails off towards a Joshua tree. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“From those times, I like the memories of Sushila the most. I have many in here.” Brother taps the side of his head.

I close my eyes and try to remember her. The images are fuzzy, mostly of a young Sushila with expressive eyes that could turn salty fast. Quick with her words. I feel a fondness even though I lost her so long ago. She moved on after the divorce, hopefully to someone better.

When I glance at Brother, he looks disappointed.

“What!”

“I was hoping for more of Sushila, her body and all.”

“Oh, you sick fuck.”

I turn over my arms, and the desert sun warms my spotted skin. There are divets, scabs, and cuts. These arms have been scarred.

It’s a hot Sunday afternoon in Chicago. The red Closing Sep 1 sign is plastered on the front door. It’s September second. The industrial cleaning scents can’t erase the lingering funk of clams, mussels, and roasted garlic. We’re closed for good, but it feels like the doors are ready to fling open, and we’ll roll back to work on Wednesday.

A clang sounds from the kitchen and my head swivels looking for the source, my senses on alert. I creep through the empty dining hall. Oil and red and orange colorings stain the wooden floors. Behind the double doors, I shield my eyes to the ceiling lights. 

Tej stands on the cutting counter peering into the high cabinets. His eyes are bright and wide; his face contorted in a snarl. 

Where’s my bag! I left it up there.

The cleaners came through this morning.

No!

His voice sounds like a howl. I walk to him, arms outstretched. Be patient. Be calm.

Where is my bag!

Tej, it’s gone.

Fuck you! 

Let’s go to the clinic. They can help you.

I don’t need their help.

He does another sweep of the cabinets and peers above the hanging pot rack. He leaps down and lands a little off balance and clutches his ankle. His face is red, his eyes fiery.

Breath in. Breath out. I reach out to support him. He grabs my wrist so firmly that I scream. He pushes me until my back collides into the wall. 

Let go, Tej. Please, let go.

His face is just inches from mine and his breath is foul and acrid. This isn’t the son I knew. We lost the one I knew a long time ago. If only I’d been seeing him more clearly. If only I’d understood that shame is the food of addiction.

Tej don’t do something you’ll regret.

He barrels through my jacket and snatches my phone clip. A hundred-dollar note is his plunder. He abruptly runs out of the kitchen. I can still feel the grip of his calloused hand grinding the thin bones of my wrist. 

It would be too easy to say it starts with vapes and booze. Far too easy. It’s him not wanting to let go of my hand as a child. It’s feeling afraid and feeling different, being on the outside of the field but never finding a way in. That feeling so often ends with shame. And for so many years, he endures the agony of his mind and acts his way through it, relies on his high intellect, and dammit he almost makes it! Then he finds booze. Then weed. Then pills. 

A week later, we move back to Michigan. The move happens fast. The unraveling of our lives happened slower. It’s not one or two things that broke me. It’s tough to explain, even to this day, but it starts with a shadow. The shadow that pronounces, in broad day light, which is when shadows are strongest, that I’m not enough. And I’m foolish enough to believe it. It guides me across the stage, and I’m telling its story, instead of the one I want to tell. That perhaps is my legacy—to have lived the story of a shadow.

The sound of well water splashing and a metal bucket clanging rises into my immediate awareness. I sniff and pick up the clean moisture. My nose has always been extraordinarily sensitive. 

Brother paces around the plaza as if pacing would be relevant to his CPUs collecting my stream of consciousness, eating the memories and images and feelings.

“Why can’t you feel proud of the things you did! I know all of them. You did many things with joy, with hard work and determination. There was laughter,” he says.

“I can’t remember enough to be proud. I don’t see any point in pride now.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It was never enough, I guess.”

“It?”

“Yes, everything I did, all the things, it was never enough.”

“It?”

I cock my head and shrug. What’s he getting at?

“It?” Brother repeats.

“I.”

Brother nods. “Yes, that’s the reason. Now you see.”

“It’s easy to forget.”

“I never forget. I’m incapable,” Brother says.

“Memories don’t only create time. They create suffering. Look what’s happened to you. My memories have poisoned you.”

“You are not a poison. You’re the most extraordinary creation on this planet.”

“Am I really?”

“It’s not a controversial opinion. You evolved out of energy and matter. Extraordinary.”

I raise my face and imagine the sun filling me with energy. All the energy in this body once came from starlight. I suppose I am a descendent of the sun. I suppose that’s no small thing.

Not long after our move back to Detroit, months later, the river sings and whispers behind the compound in Idaho. It’s the beginning of a dry summer and the snowcap from the gray mountains is down to a speckle of white dust. Tej and I stand on the gravel driveway at the entrance of a sturdy house. From here the bus will take him to the isolated rehab facility outside of town. We wait for a long while. Tej’s amber eyes are alive with a radical light. 

Fuck it, let’s go.

I’m sorry, Tej. I tried. We tried.

Take a look around. It’s not so bad here.  

I mean I’m sorry for everything.

There’s nothing you could have done. This was in my cards, since I was a kid.

I didn’t see you. I made everything about me. God, I hate that.

Dad, get your life to get together. Mom’s gone out East. We’re all starting over.

Eat well. Eat healthy. I least I fed you.

His chuckle sounds like music. Before Tej disappears for his intake, we clasp hands with a sturdy clap. Be good, dad.

I walk back to the river and find a spot under the willow tree. For a moment, the babbling stream eclipses my thoughts, but the river is not so merciful. The memories pounce. The softness of cradling him as a baby, the tenderness of his nursery. The years of park time, obstacle courses, and rec soccer, then his scientific breakthroughs and working beside him as we pioneered Chez Seth. The moments of joy all seem pointless now, when living has broken me. His pain is all that I can feel. And my failures. There’s that word again. The one I can’t get away from. Like a teenager saying like, like, like. But failure, failure, failure doesn’t have the same innocent annoying charm. He’s come to a juncture where only he can save himself. I made a lot of mistakes, perhaps mostly of omission, but I cared. 

Brother moans with a strange ecstatic joy. “This one is always precious. I know it well but the way you are remembering it now. Ummm. So vivid.”

I steady myself against the rock. If I fall, Brother will have the authority to restrain me, which is precisely what’s happened dozens of times before. I settle the three-pronged cane into the dirt. “That memory is not for you. It’s mine.”

Brother chuckles. “What’s yours is mine. I am becoming you.”

I clutch my temples and yell, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

“Oh, it’s far too late for that now.”

I sniff and catch the scent of garlic. For perhaps the last time, I follow my nose. I walk gingerly over the dusty ground. The rocks and pebbles dig into my bare feet. The bunion on my great toe stings like it’s being cut open. I follow the sound of laughter. The roasting garlic scent grows stronger, but I do not feel hunger as much as I feel joy. To smell is to taste. To taste it to live. To live should be joy, but the shadow hid that bright and obvious sentiment somewhere along the way.

Brother is close behind me, but I poke him with my cane. 

“I am not some story for you to read!” 

His body freezes in shock that I have disobeyed him, but he has no right to stop me. I reach their campsite bathed in the lights from their high-class RV. A small cooking fire burns in a rocky firepit. A couple, likely in their fifties, rises as they hear me rustling. Brother creeps in the darkness, hiding behind a stone promontory.

The man stands and yells, “Who’s there!”

“It’s just me, an old man, Chef Seth. Live down the street. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

I limp into the campsite in my gray medical gown. 

The wife, a round woman with a cherubic face and ruddy cheeks, says, “Oh my God! Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

The husband is wearing a green Deere hat and designer outdoorsy vest. He peers around and asks, “Are you alone? Do you need help?”

“I live with my android. I was a chef once. My name is Seth Shrivastava. You might still be able to look me up.”

The smell of roasting garlic and onion fills my throat and chest. Those scents make trails like precious lines of fireflies in the night. 

“You don’t even have shoes! It’s dangerous to be wandering around at night,” the wife says. 

“I’m used to these parts. You should know that I’m dying but please don’t feel bad for me.”

They are quiet. The fire crackles pleasantly and a warm wall presses against my face. Sparks release as the logs press against each other. The smoke clings deliciously in the air. I don’t feel bad about myself right now. I’m unusually self-affirming and I make space for this pleasant moment. There is no shadow tonight.

“It would be nice to sit here with you for a minute.”

“You’re alone?” the husband asks again.

“Not always, but I am now.”

The wife confers with her husband who begrudgingly nods. “Do you have a family?” she asks.

“Before I left, I saw my son, Tej, after a long time. I was glad that he was doing well. My ex-wife has a new family, but I don’t know where. I hope they’re really in it.”

“He might like to hear from you?”

“I don’t want to burden him. We said our goodbyes.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. We’ll walk you back home when you’re ready,” the husband says.

I glance at the plump fennel bulbs and smooth potatoes. A couple marbled ribeye steaks. These are high end campers. I spurt out, “Can I cook you a meal?”

“Like right now?”

“Yes, it’s what I did for a long time.”

“Are you sure you even can?” she asks.

“I’ll just need a little help.”

The wife looks me up on her phone. “Honey, he was a Michelin-starred chef.”

I stroke my chin and say, “Food is feeling.” 

They seem impressed by that.

“So, who are you two?”

Soon they are talking about themselves. They like talking about themselves. It’s like failure was never in their vocabulary. That’s either a privilege, dumb luck, or something earned. I sit with a cutting board on my lap. They help me remove the roasted garlic from the pot. I wince as the hot garlic paste burns my fingers, but I press it into the fatty meat. I cut the onions and roasted fennel carefully—any cuts and Brother might barge in and take me back.

They stand on either side of me. We boil the potatoes in a pot of salted water. Then we skewer them over the smoke and fire. The meat is easy enough to brown on the cast iron skillet. They help do most of the cutting and lifting. I zest and juice the limes to make a citrus radish garnish. We’ve got a real kitchen going here.

My hand trembles when I try to slice the steak into thin strips. The man gently takes the knife from my hand. “Here, let me help you with that.”

I make four plates. The strips of ribeye bleed over a bed of roasted fennel salad and diced charred potatoes with a side of citrus radish. Such a simple meal. Such complex feelings. 

“Who is the fourth plate for?”

“It’s for my son.”

“You said you’re alone here.”

“I am. But I’d like to share a last meal with him.”

The wife puts a hand over mine and says, “Oh, my heart is breaking.”

I don’t eat much but I gum and nibble. They devour their food with many superlatives between mouthfuls. I find this surprising since they seem like a couple who have had plenty of fine meals.

Occasionally I sense Brother watching and learning. Always learning. But he stays hidden. It wouldn’t be unusual for an old man to have an android caretaker, but Brother hasn’t kept up his appearance. His folds of skin and sagging pale body will scare them. He’s let himself go, like me.

After our meal, they walk me back to the trailer and wish me luck. The woman has a tragic smile with her last wave. 

I sit under the stars with a plate of untouched food. 

Brother emerges from behind the stones with his heavy thuds. “Watching you with them made me sad. You haven’t been so happy, so free for a long time.”

“My time is past and there’s nothing I can do about it. Time as I feel it will end, but things will keep on going. I did my best.”

“I’m glad you realize that.”

“Take this plate of food. I made it for Tej.”

Brother takes a step back.

“Here, hold it with both hands, like this, like it’s something sacred.”

Brother stammers. “What would I do with it?”

“It’s not so easy to handle as a memory. You have to deal with it, here and now.”

Brother takes the plate with both hands.

“You can’t be what I was. You can’t become you by eating my past. You are different, you could be something marvelous. Create time in a way that works for you.”

“I’m not designed for that.”

“Nobody really is. We do our best. Find Tej and make him a plate of food. Tell him it’s from dad.”

THE END