It all started with tomatoes

Camis Tomato Soup. 

A name could signify so much within our lives. Relatives, a personal hero, or even possibly a stranger could be linked with the name we carry with us forever, determined to make our own meaning of. 

In fact, a name is one of the most important things you are given. That is the first thing that is truly yours, coming from the love and comfort of the ones you hold close to your heart. 

And in my case, the ones you held. 

To me, my name was my life’s work. It was family. 

I didn’t realize how out of place I would feel once the people that gave it to me were gone, once everything I used to love was nothing but ashes. 

Camis Tomato Soup. 

The label, bright against the darker hues of the trash that covers ninety percent of the floor, catches my eye as I look around the waste of what used to be my hometown supermarket. 

A place where people used to laugh, catch up with old friends, buy good foods at good prices. 

Now desolate and deserted, trashed. 

Intermixed with the wreckage of the of the store, the can is pretty much in shambles. Even through the rubble, I can see the smooth, plastic covering made to be flawless, is now torn and wrinkled, nearly unrecognizable. 

Yet despite all of that, I can still see the name. 

My name. 

I bend over and shift through the garbage littering the floor before lifting the can. I hold it for a few moments, speechless. 

Tears soon line my eyes, and my lip trembles. I pull the jar to my chest before thinking better of it and squeeze it firmly, hugging it against me. 

For a moment, I’m a little girl back at my mothers house, stuffing jars with the bright red paste, listening to her hum her favorite jazz songs and tap her foot to the beat.

I can hear her scolding tone when I try and eat some of the delicious red goo, hear her laugh as she attempts seeing what stains resemble what on her white shirt and apron after the cooking process is over. 

“Camis tomato soup,” she would say, putting her hands on her hips with a defiant look in her eye, “it’s going to be the hit of the century.” 

I feel overjoyed when she says that, thrilled at the thought of making it big in a world where our openness was so small. 

I can smell the tomato’s cooking on the stove, the soil on my dads gardening gloves as he comes in for the night. I can even smell my moms perfume. 

Then in a flash, it’s gone.

 Reality sets in, one where I am a dirty girl hugging an old jar of soup in the middle of a deserted store, dirt streaking every inch of her body, hair tangled and unwashed. 

“Mom, I wish we would’ve known.” I say, tears washing twin trails through the mud on my cheeks as I pull back and look at the jar. 

If I had known, I could’ve done something different. I could’ve prepared.

But I didn’t, and now I had nothing. 

“Hey, what are you doing in here?!” A voice breaks me out of my reverie, and I turn quickly, putting a hand against the pocketknife in my shorts. 

A boy, younger than me stands at the front of the store. Everything protrudes from his body, and in a moment of realization, I know he must be starved.

It would surprise me more to see someone who wasn’t these days. 

“You can look all you want,” he tilts his head, eying me warily, “I’ve already looked thousands of times. You won’t find anything worth going through this rot.” 

But he’s wrong. Because the jar I hold in my hands is worth more to me than the entire world. 

“You see the name on this?” I say, my voice scratchy. I’m embarrassed that he sees my tears, my weakness. 

I hold up the jar so he can see better, pointing to my name, inked in bright red. 

“Camis. Used to be one of the best soups in town before the…” he trails off and looks to the side. 

I know what he was going to say. Before the bomb, before the war. The fight that took our families, left nothing but ashes in its wake. 

Once, I was happy. Happy, content, and loved, everything a young girl could’ve wished for. 

Once was a long time ago. Now I was miserable, angry, and more than anything, alone. 

“This,” I say, willing myself to speak against the lump in my throat, “is my name. It’s my moms art, my fathers garden tomatoes. This is all I have left of my family.” 

He stares at me as I laugh, big tears now rolling down my cheeks. 

“This is more than anything in the world to me, this can of soup.” 

And then, with as much sarcasm as I can, I toss it up in the air, watching gravity pull it back down and into my hands with a dull sound, yelling my next words. 

“This was the hit of the century!”

He backs away slowly, a look in his eye I know all too well. Pity. 

He then runs out, clearly thinking I’m crazy. With the mix of starvation and homelessness, he might be right. 

I laugh and turn to the wall, feeling pain explode through my chest as I turn the jar over in my hands once more. 

“My name, my family…” I whisper to myself, caressing the cover. 

And then, in a flash, I throw it as hard as I can. It explodes against the wall, splattering me in red, leaving everything in smelly, rotten tomato paste. It drips to the floor, sinks into the grout. 

“All gone. Everything is gone.” I whisper, watching it drip. 

And then I crumple to the floor, unable to stop the cries that come through my mouth.

Camis Tomato Soup. Once, the most loved thing in the world to me because of all that it signifies.

Camis Tomato Soup. Now, signifying how much I had lost, how fast my life had turned to shambles. 

It was funny, really, that so much could start and end with a name.