The Immigrant

It’s cheese he said.
Yes, cheese she said.
It’s not cheese she thought to herself.
Not the cheese I know.
The cheese I know comes from the beautiful cows, cows as beautiful as princesses that graciously graze on the deep grass, grass as salty as the sea, grass as green as the emerald lake of your dreams. The grass infuses the milk with a spice and the delightful dirt of the reed roofed huts where the loafs of cheese lay to rest like lazy cats in the sun, gifts it with mold – blue, thick and crumbly, bursting with umami – alarming the senses.
And your cheese? White as snow, slick as plastic, tasteless.

It’s a house he said.
Yes, a house she said.
It’s not a house she thought to herself.
Not a house as I know it.
A house with a heart and a soul like a family, where the floors creak like grandpa’s bones, where the sour aroma of pickling pickles is hanging in the air like an invisible vail – grandma’s shy hello from the distance, but so close. A house with a front door that never fully shuts, with oblique walls – protective – silent, not telling what they saw, and then mother whose high and happy song tirades along the winding staircase, wiggling at the last post in a liberating vibrato.
And your house? Perfect, pasty. Walking on thick creamy carpet, like on clouds but not feeling it.

It’s friends he said.
Yes, friends she said.
It’s not friends she thought to herself.
Not friends like mine.
Do friends say good bye as they just arrived? Denying themselves like a lover who leaves the night cold? The friends I know they stay, lay down their hats, their hearts and heat up the night as only lovers can do. Lovers hate, scream, cry – like a coyote howling all through the night. They laugh, sing and jump until the morning – until the healing sound of a gong echoes through the mist – as from a monastery high above.

And so she sat in her new house and wished it was her old house, next to the new friends and wished they were her old friends, eating the new cheese and wished it was the old cheese. Contended in a container of polite smiles that stung like bees, sterile air she couldn’t breathe and lies so thick she couldn’t see.
No – content she was not – contended she was – she wished for the old world, the lost world. She wished for home.