Burning Onions
I have to admit I don’t know what a burning onion smells like. I know that a burning tire smells like how it feels to have knees skinned against the sidewalk. Burnt popcorn likes to play hide and seek with the fibers of my bed sheets: its smell gets cozy there, and goes to sleep. Cutting onions burns the eyes of the person wielding the knife, so I guess it’s appropriate that burning the onions might inflict a similar sort of unpleasantry.
When I was in the sixth grade, I suffered a patchwork of first and second degree burns all over my body. I was on vacation under the equatorial sun and had mixed up after-sun lotion with the usual 70+ SPF that my fair, freckled skin required. One day on the beach in that direct heat had burnt me to a skin-bubbling crisp. I spent nights trying to fall asleep in the bathtub because the hotel bed sheet scratched at my swollen exterior and the cool porcelain offered something that felt sort of like relief. I had trapped myself in a fiery skin prison, where the only remedies were ice and burn cream and Almond Joy candy bars.
So to the onions I may accidentally burn in the future: I am sorry. I know your pain, and I would scream and hiss and let out some odious aroma as well, if it would have signaled the sun to maybe turn down the heat in my beachside frying pan. I’m sorry, and I promise to pay better attention next time.