The taqueria. The pepper. The sauce.

Senor David was driving down a dusty Texas road when he found a taqueria that should not have been there. Low-slung roof. Hand-painted signs. Smoke curling from a pipe in the back.

The heat made the air shimmer, and there it was — a screen door that didn’t quite close, the smell of something tangy and green cutting through the dust.

He parked. He walked in. And that’s when he saw the owner.

The owner was not a normal man. He was a jalapeno pepper, green as a fresh stem, with a grin that knew more than it said. He had arms. He had legs. He wore an apron.

He handed David a bottle, cold and green, and gave him five words.

“Go make the world creamy.”

David drove home. He tasted the sauce. He put it on everything — chips, tacos, eggs, sandwiches, things that shouldn’t have sauce on them but did anyway.

When he went back, the taqueria was gone. The road was empty. Nothing but dust and the shimmer of heat on asphalt.

But the bottle remained. And David, being the kind of man who takes a mission seriously, figured out how to make more.

The original taqueria is gone. The sauce remains.