“Buy me that,” the ghost demanded, pointing at the box in the man’s hand. The man looked down at him and smiled, then strolled over to the wine section. I picked up the box he’d returned to the shelf and began reading the explanation on the back.

“Buy it for me.”

“Wait till I finish reading this.” The people who consumed this grain in the mountains of Peru five thousand years ago regarded it as a sacred food and probably heated it over the fire, as they cooked rice. Because we have processed it like popcorn, it can be added to salad just as it is or mixed with cereal. The name I’d forgotten came back to me. Aztec. In my mind, the “t” disappeared, changing it to “Asuka.”

“Come on, buy me a box.”

“Do you know what this is?”

“Sure—it’s quinoa,” he answered casually.

How did he know that? My cereal-like brain, doused with milk and stirred with a spoon, was rich in minerals, but still I was growing more and more confused.

“Have you ever eaten that?” a voice suddenly asked. I looked up to see that the man from before was back, carrying a bottle of wine in one hand. I wondered for a moment if he might not be a ghost, too. Though not as white as the boy’s, his cheeks were definitely pale, his eyes red around the rims. “I can’t decide whether to buy a box or not,” he went on. “I’ve just come from a world where there’s nothing to buy, so I’m overwhelmed by all this merchandise.” He ran his index finger over his forehead. At that moment, tall spears of yellow grain shimmered around his shoulders. A world where there’s nothing to buy—could that be prison? Or perhaps some North African city under siege? Maybe he had leukemia and had been in hospital for a long time. There are plenty of places on Earth that aren’t flooded with things for sale.

“The box is a pretty color, don’t you think?” he said, coming at me from a completely different angle. “Orange, like the sun peeking out from between the clouds.” He went on, “Its warmth reminds you of the earth, its fragility, of delicate flowers.”

“It’s the very color of South America—that’s probably why they chose it.”

“You mean Aztec, Inca, Maya?”

“That’s right. The history of this grain apparently goes back a lot further, though.”

“It that right? I’ve been cut off from the outside world for so long I don’t know much about things like that.”