In high school, I made a lot of curried rice. I got the recipe from my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook. The most important aspect of it was the onion, chopped finely and caramelized with butter and curry powder. I just loved chopping those onions finely. It didn't make me cry. I was totally zoned in on the chopping. I had to get it really fine, barely noticeable that onions were in there. Then, it would be good enough to share with friends.

Of course, tearing up all those onions was nice. I didn't have to think about mine. It just sat in the corner with a particularly nasty spot facing the wall. You could vaguely see the spot from the very surface and it kept getting clearer as I peeled on that side. I tried to focus on the other side, but eventually it would get all lopsided and the onion would roll onto its side, with the spot sticking right up on top. I'd level it off a little by peeling off some layers. Before putting it back with the spot to the wall, I'd look at it for a second.

Is that... Jesus?

No... What is that...?

I thought the answer. I almost said it out loud, but instead I turned the spot to the wall and started peeling the other side again.

This continued for years, until I started making curried rice. Then, as fast as I had started making it, I lost interest in making curried rice. It was only one dish and surely I could find another way to pass time. Needless to say, I ended up peeling occasionally. I still wasn't fond of that spot, so it continued to face the wall.

After years of activities seemingly designed to keep my mind off my onion, I found a woman willing to take part ownership of it, even after telling her about the spot on the other side. She never looked at that side, but we signed all the legal documents and I even dropped acid onto the front to etch her name down to the core. She helped me peel a little and even chopped other onions for me, when it seemed I was afraid of my onion toppling over.

Finally, after peeling for twenty-nine years, I saw another onion that had been peeled away almost to the core. It had markings just like mine! I grabbed my onion and compared. It had toppled just four months prior, so I had freshly peeled it. The mark was pretty clear now. Yes, it was almost inevitably the same mark. Not only did I see the mark now for what it was, I saw that it was nothing to be ashamed of. I wanted to walk down the street, tossing my onion from hand to hand, finally free to let the world see it. I showed two people in the kitchen the mark and they kind of wrinkled their brows and shrugged. They didn't really care too much about my onion or what kind of mark it had on it. When I turned around, the very woman whose name was inscribed on my onion gasped and fumed. She said that I was wrong. The mark was not what I thought it was. It did not go to the core. I peeled more layers off and the mark was only clearer. I said, "See? That's all there is to the other side of my onion. It's not so bad." She said, "If you don't put those layers back on and face that side to the wall again, I will slice that onion right in half and take my half somewhere else."

So, I did as I was told and my onion faces the way it's always faced, but now I know what's on the other side and what's more, it's bound to come to the surface sometime. I just have to decide when to start peeling again.