The Retrieval of Adam Man

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THE RETRIEVAL OF ADAM MAN

Searching For Holy Communion

REALITY FICTION SERIES ©

Written by

MICHAEL BROWN

03.01.2013

Also available by this writer:

THE PRESENCE PROCESS – A Journey Into Present Moment Awareness

ALCHEMY OF THE HEART – Transforming Turmoil Into Peace Through

Emotional Integration

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CHAPTER TITLES

1. THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

2. MEET SOUPERMAN

3. OBSOLESCING OPRAH

4. THE BLIND TOURIST

5. TASTING REAL CHICKEN

6. OBSOLESCING MYSELF

7. MEETING MR. SOUP

8. DREAMING SLEEP

9. CHASING CHICKENS

10. THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE

11. PULLING THE PLUG

12. SLACK

13. LIVE DEAD CHICKENS

fourteen. CHICKEN KITCHEN

15. SOUPING UP THE SOUP

16. MY CLUE IN

17. BLOOD AND GUTS

18. DINNER AND TRANCE

19. MENTAL MACHETES

20. COFFEE AND TOBACCO

21. REVELATIONS

22. HOLY COMMUNION

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DEDICATION

THE RETRIEVAL OF ADAM MAN

Is a fantastical conversation about

Human to human communication

In an age of evolving technology

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"…the wheel is an extension of the foot,

the book is an extension of the eye,

clothing, an extension of the skin,

electric circuitry, an extension of

the

central

nervous

system…"

The Medium is The Massage, Marshall McLuhan.

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1. THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

I sat before him. He sat before me. I had only moments ago arrived from

an arduous journey up the Amazon River, and along a large unnamed tributary,

to meet him in a place they called the accommodation. His translator, who they

called the medium, sat to my right hand side, but with his chair pushed back so

that his presence was a blurry movement in my periphery. He always sat in this

position when translating, whether for the man I had come so far to learn from,

or for his wife. Only when he met me at the accommodation‟s makeshift jetty

had the medium ever spoken to me directly. “I have come to take you to the

chicken soup maker,” is all he had said. There was no „Hello, how was your trip?‟

or „Thank you for traveling so many days without access to a private toilet‟,

nothing. After announcing himself, the medium had mechanically turned and

walked away, and from that moment I followed in his tracks whenever I went

anywhere. He was the only bridge between me and everyone there, my sole

medium of communication.

The reason I explain this to you is because this story is full of conversation.

There is a lot of talking. However, every word I write here as communicated by

others living at the accommodation, was only ever uttered by him, the medium,

translating for me. His were the only words I ever heard spoken, beside my own.

Also, every word I spoke to others first had to be heard by the medium, and only

then translated through elaborate finger signaling to whomever I was talking to.

This meant that at times the person I spoke to looked at me, and at times they

looked past me into a shifting blur in my periphery. It took some getting used to,

and then it became second nature, and then it became first nature. Initially, on

arrival, I had thought it rude that the medium‟s manner dismissed any invite for

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conversation. I tried to talk to him once, twice, three times, but he quietly looked

away. Consequently, for the duration of my stay, the only voice I ever heard

besides mine was from a man who insisted on having no conversation with me.

A man, who for most of my two day stay, sat on the fringes of my peripheral

vision, speaking words into my right ear that were generated by hand signals

coming from someone sitting in front of me.

The peculiarity of the place in which I had arrived had first been explained to me

by an obnoxious blind tourist I‟d met three months prior to my arrival here. He

had said that it was a settlement for the deaf and mute, and that they seldom

allow the hearing and speaking to visit, and never allow them to take up

residence. He had told me how the medium was their go-between with the

outside world. This was why he was called the medium. He had first lived there

as a part of the community, because he had also once been deaf and mute.

Then, because of the soup, his hearing and speaking had miraculously recovered.

By then he was immersed in their unique vocabulary of hand signals, and so they

had asked him to stay on and be their interpreter for rare visitors and necessary

contact with the outside world. He had agreed. Now I was one of those visitors.

So there we sat, the greatest maker of chicken soup on the planet, the medium,

and I. I immediately felt intimidated by the man who sat before me. This

supposedly „world‟s greatest maker of chicken soup‟ did not give me the warm

fuzzy feeling I had envisaged. In fact, he didn‟t appear at all pleased to see me,

even though it was he who had called me here to see him.

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2. MEET SOUPERMAN

Before I begin telling you what the soup maker‟s fingers had to say to me,

let me first tell you something about myself. I am Adam Man, Master Soup Chef,

also known by my fans as “Souperman!” Years ago I jumped into the reality

television cooking scene, before it became saturated, and made my mark

internationally as a celebrity soup maker. I also wrote a few bestselling

cookbooks and opened a trendy restaurant in Hawaii called Souperman‟s Kitchen.

My life was an ongoing American success story until that blind tourist showed up

and told me that my chicken soup was a mockery of a recipe belonging to a

legendary soup maker called Mr. Soup. At first I thought this guy, in his big

square blind-man dark glasses and flashy suit, was just poking some fun at me.

But it soon became apparent that he was quite serious about his accusation: that

my soup was a mockery of a recipe belonging to a man called Mr. Soup. Sounds

completely ridiculous, right? Mr. Soup? Really, who would give themselves a silly

name like that? It was just too obvious to be believable.

At the time this encounter was unfolding, this blind tourist was „looking‟ up at me

from his barely sipped chicken soup, and I was graciously listening to his

complaints about it. Yes, I still tend to a few tables in my own restaurant. I am

not too big for my own britches. I have this shtick where I randomly pick one

table, and then I give them my full attention all evening. It becomes a kind of

show. The other tables nearby enjoy it, and because it happens for all to see, it

turns the rest of the clientele into an unsuspecting audience, vicariously

engaging with me through some lucky tourists. My fans come to see if it may be

their table I pick for the night. Or maybe they will be lucky enough to get a table

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right alongside the performance, a souper-seat as I like to call it. It is good for

the restaurant and it keeps me in touch with my fans.

So yes, I too am a soup maker. Soup is what my reality cooking show had been

about. I would knock on a strangers‟ door two hours before dinner with a film

crew, $10 bill in my hand, and offer to make them the best pot of soup they had

ever tasted, with whatever ingredients I could find in their kitchen. It was a

brilliant concept and a winning formula! They say you only have to have one

good idea in your life to achieve everything you want. This was mine.

If the occupants of the house agreed, because in the early days some people

would slam the door, then I would send one family member to buy $10 worth of

ingredients. I was only allowed to spend $10 or under. By the time I became a

reality television superstar, I was known as „Souperman, the $10 Master Soup

Chef‟. Eventually, when I arrived at stranger‟s homes, my thing was knocking at

the door, and when the occupants appeared, I‟d smile, wink, and wave a $10 bill.

It was corny, but it was a trigger for spontaneous excitement. It was all rock „n

roll from there.

My secret to success was simple: I knew I could make a soup out of anything if I

had $10 worth of garlic, chilies, onions, ginger, and potatoes. In those days a

$10 bill purchased me enough to make the stock base for a soup for six to eight

people. If some of those ingredients were already in the house, then I used the

$10 for tomatoes, olive oil, and/or bacon. I only had five minutes to go through

the stranger‟s kitchen to compile a list. I became so intuitive about people that I

sometimes inspected their kitchen wearing a blindfold, and then sent out my list.

Of course I was smelling and touching everything, so I wasn‟t really blind. Once

the list of ingredients was sent for, we cranked up whatever sound system they

had in their house, and especially whatever CD was left in the player. So we had

no idea whether we would be cooking to ABBA, Carol King, U2, Bob Marley, or a

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Yodeling Compilation Album from Norway. Once the music was blasting, I started

preparing the soup. I liked taking everything to the limit, because I knew that

whenever I did, out of seemingly nowhere, something unexpectedly fantastic

would pop up to delight our television viewers. And, once I became a celeb with

celeb friends, I would also have surprise celeb guests arrive at the house.

Television viewers love watching celebs hang out with unsuspecting, ordinary

folk. It is another simple, brilliant formula for success.

If my soup was judged a failure by all in the family, I had to leave $1000 in the

fridge. But if at least one of them liked it, it was enough for me to be declared,

“Souperman! The triumphant!” Unfair odds you may say. Actually, not really.

Often I was only cooking for one or two people, so the odds were not always in

my favor. However, to ensure the odds were always in my favor, during the

filming we always served expensive golden, bubbly champagne to family

members old enough to imbibe. It became the trademark of my cooking show

that the popping of the champagne cork was accompanied by a loud, “Let‟s

make Soup with Souperman!” from all present. I consequently never lost a

challenge, and the show‟s viewers grew exponentially, all of them waiting for me

to fail, but loving me for succeeding. It was perfect reality television! I never

failed because I was “Souperman!” I turned a whole nation back to the

appreciation of soup. People even held soup parties while they watched my one

hour, multi-award winning culinary hit:

“Let’s Make Soup With Souperman!”

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3. OBSOLESCING OPRAH

It was shortly after the release my third best-selling cookbook Soup Gives

Us Souperpowers Part III that I was taken to the next level in my television

career. And, as was the case for a select, blessed few in those days, it was

Oprah, the queen of talk television that took me. She had planned a touchy-feely

interview called Soups for Summer Love, but instead I turned the entire show on

its head and into her highest rated culinary guest appearance ever. I tore the

place up, and she willingly let go control of the whole thing. Let me tell you

about it…

I made a ridiculous entrance, dressed as Charley Chaplin on Kangoo Boots,

hopping around idiotically to Frank Zappa‟s Camarillo Brillo. After hugging Oprah,

I bounced around again for the audience and came to a standstill at center stage,

facing them. I then reached as deliberately as a mime artist, into my right hand

pocket, offered a slow calculated wink, and produced and waved a $10 bill. I will

admit I was a bit taken aback by how enthusiastically the audience responded!

They all appeared to know the shtick of my show. Accordingly, they were already

programmed to expect soup making when I did that. Oprah must have done her

research too, because she also leapt spontaneously with childlike abandon from

her seat. In that moment I knew my sneaky plan, like Oprah and her studio

audience, was firmly in the palm of my hand.

“Who wants to see if I can make soup out of what I can find down these Harpo

Studio corridors?” I challenged, waving the $10 bill frantically. It was instant

„Oprah Audience Gone Wild‟! In that moment Oprah lost complete control of her

intended script. “And who wants to see Oprah go and do the shopping for us?” I

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egged, nodding „yes‟ as I did so. The audience completely lost any remaining

semblance of composure. In that moment they wanted Oprah to go shopping

more than anything they had ever wanted, and Oprah knew this. From that point

there was no other option for Oprah but a forward movement into the unknown

and unpredictable. And so television history was made when a relatively

unknown culinary guest sent Oprah out of her own show and into the streets of

Chicago to buy onions, celery, cilantro, tomatoes, chili, and olive oil.

One camera crew followed Oprah out the building into a street that had already

heard she was coming. For a few confused seconds it looked like Oprah‟s

mobility was blocked off, but then in homogenous Oprah-audience-response,

people in the center of the street stepped aside, and like one creature, initiated a

snaking chain reaction, fashioning an organic, living passageway for her to move

through. It stretched out all the way to the nearest grocer, and so Oprah didn‟t

even have to think. [„The human passageway to the grocer‟ is still rated the top

all time „Oprah moment‟.] Considering the time it took Oprah to get out of the

building and into the street, the obvious question surfacing on every viewer‟s

mind was, would she be able to get back to the studio on and in time? Would

this be an Oprah full circle moment happening live for all to witness, or would it

be an incomplete, but complete, culinary catastrophe?

As this drama unfolded outside, another camera crew filmed my erratic and

seemingly chaotic bouncing out of the live studio and back into the bowels of the

T.V. land corridors from which I had initially emerged. For the first few moments

the audience watched the unfolding events on split screen studio television

monitors, but then two large, HD plasma screens were wheeled onto the stage

by technicians wearing head phones with mouth pieces. One monitor was placed

in front of Oprah‟s chair, and the other in front of the one intended for me. The

audience remained transfixed even though the live show was now being hosted

by two digital technology screens.

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I had arrived early and already mapped out the backstage terrain, but I made it

appear as if I was searching randomly in completely unfamiliar territory. I

entered rooms I already knew had nothing for me. I pretended to get lost and

confused in the corridors. The camera crew were gradually being pushed toward

the limits their hospitality ethics. But systematically, like an accidentally

competent detective, I found exactly what I wanted for my soup dish:

salt sachets from someone‟s take aways

an extension cable from the printer

a tall beer glass

a small serrated kitchen knife

concentrated lime juice from the fridge

a small blender from The Green Room kitchenette

an ice bucket [with ice] and champagne

a selection of fruits, also from The Green Room

Once I had gathered my required ingredients, I charged back to the kitchenette,

tossed what I had into the blender, except the champagne, and

zzzzzzzzzzzzzinged it to the perfect consistency. At that point one of the camera

crew, forcing politeness for the sake of live television, stated that we were now

running out of time. “Don‟t worry,” I smiled confidently, “we have as much time

as Oprah does!” He tried to explain that there was only 15 minutes left on the

clock, and that Oprah was only now leaving the grocery store. Eventually he

could hold his poise no longer.

“It will take her at least that long to get back into the building!” he blurted.

“She‟ll never make it back into the studio! This was a stupid idea man! Really

stupid!” But what he did not know was that I was counting on this, and that he

had actually gained himself a front row seat to a legendary television moment. I

had deliberately sprung a trap for Oprah, and in the spontaneously triggered $10

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excitement, she had taken the bait: Oprah had believed it could be done. I

ignored the frantic camera man because I knew the best part was yet to come. I

snatched up the blender, champagne bucket complete with champagne and ice,

the extension cable, the concentrated lime juice, and sprinted for the lifts. The

camera crew followed, gasping and growling.

In the live studio the moment of truth began unfolding with each plasma HD

screen capturing a desperate race for completion. Being a reality television

cooking expert, my timing unfolded to perfection. By the time Oprah made it to

the building entrance I was ready and waiting for her. We still had 2 whole

minutes on the clock, and on television that can be an eternity. The blender was

already hooked up to the extension cable. As Oprah approached, gasping and

laughing so hard she could barely speak, I simultaneously popped the

champagne. In the live studio, on the streets of Chicago, and all across America

and the Oprah world, people rose to their feet and shouted:

“Let’s make Soup with Souperman!”

I swiftly placed an assortment of Oprah‟s purchases into the blender with my

already prepared contents. On top of this I tossed some ice, a dash of olive oil,

and blended. We had one minute on the clock when I tossed out the rest of the

ice and poured my version of „Souperman‟s Mediterranean Gazpacho!‟ from the

blender into the beautiful, copper, ice bucket. From the ice bucket I poured a

three-quarter full glass, squirted a few drops of concentrated lime juice on the

surface, dropped a cilantro leaf atop that, and, behaving as if I had all the time

in the world, handed it nonchalantly to Oprah. “Your soup, Madam,” I smiled and

winked. Oprah sipped immediately. She was hot, dry-mouthed from heavy

breathing, and so nothing could have tasted more delicious in her mouth at that

precise moment than „Souperman‟s Iced Mediterranean Gazpacho!‟

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“Now I know why everyone calls you Souperman, Souperman…” was all Oprah

had time to say before the camera angle withdrew and glided up and away to

reveal thousands of cheering people dancing and waving in the street. Then, in

the closing seconds of the show, as Oprah‟s Producer switched to the in-studio

cameras, televisions in households around the world saw something for the first

time. The in-studio live audience were on their feet giving a screaming ovation to

two large Plasma HD Screens. On one of them was a gyrating and jubilant Oprah,

hugging and greeting fans. On the other, me, Souperman, looking directly in-

camera and applauding the television in-studio audience by pointing at them

with the forefinger of my right hand. I did not have to say a word. My finger,

simply pointing, spoke loud and clear. I gave that moment to the in-studio live

audience for making it all happen. They had unknowingly pushed Oprah out of

the studio and into the unknown. For most of that show the Oprah stage was

empty of humans. For the first time in history the digital studio was alone with its

audience, unrehearsed, and running to perfection. Almost the entire show was

presented by resonating, reflective images, by digital screens, and yet still

evoked the most powerful human emotion ever experienced on the Oprah show.

Some say that it was on that day that Oprah realized digital technology had

rendered her in some way obsolete. That moment was the seed, they say, for

her leaving the show and forming her OWN network.

From that moment things changed dramatically for me too. I could get any celeb

I wanted to make a „surprise appearance‟ on my reality show. I became the

undisputed king of reality television cooking shows. I was „reality television

cooking‟. I led a whole nation back to soup. I made Soup Kitchens into

respectable establishments again. I was indeed, Souperman!

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4. THE BLIND TOURIST

It was perfectly natural, therefore, for me to become ever so slightly

annoyed when some blind tourist told me, in front of my fans, that my chicken

soup is a mockery of someone else‟s recipe. You see, after five years shooting

reality television soup shows, I had become the best I know at the task of

making soup. I am the real deal. It‟s not all show. Experience taught me

everything. I know soup. It is my alchemy. Soup has not only made me a king of

reality television cooking, it also made me a multi-millionaire. I‟m loaded. I earn

more money in each moment than I can spend in any moment, and not many

have cracked that level of success with soup. There is no other soup maker in

the world that has a star on Hollywood Boulevard. I made soup for Obama on

the night of his first inauguration. Usually, the general public wouldn‟t know or

even be interested in who made The President‟s soup on the big night. But when

I did it, Rolling Stone Magazine released a preview interview with me titled

Souperman Rocks White House Kitchen! The magazine cover shoot was done in

The White House kitchen. And I am alone am in the picture. The yet to be sworn

in President Obama was standing off to one side admiring my poses. He loves

soup. They put a picture of him in the spread somewhere saying something like

that. He even asked for my autograph for the Mrs. President to be. I signed a

White House soup bowl for her.

So here I am, Souperman, listening as politely as possible to a blind tourist

telling me about a South American chicken soup maker whose creations render

mine practically tasteless. He then goes on to explain that, “It is thus from this

man that the saying, „All you need is a little Jewish penicillin and you will feel

right as rain‟, comes. A fact made even more astounding,” emphasized the

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tourist, “because this man is not even Jewish! And [he just kept on talking] it

was because of this saying that millions have come to believe that when struck

by cold or flu, a bowl of steamy chicken soup would get you up and about

again.” I tried to interject, but he was blind, so my raised hand was ignored. He

just went on explaining that this soup maker, who he stated must be about 100

years old, at least, made chicken soup that was an elixir.

Now, let‟s be honest, chicken soup is great, but you cannot put it in the same

sentence as elixir. Because then anything can be an elixir. So, stupidly, I put my

hand up again. Blind to my attempts at participation in the discussion, the blind

tourist went on to declare that, “The chicken soup this man makes has

inexplicable healing powers.” And I have to listen to this rubbish while people

who know me are watching and listening, in my restaurant, in front of me. I kept

my smile on, though it was admittedly very challenging. Truth is, if I had not

been so famous, I would have taken him outside and roughed him up, blind or

not.

For a moment he appeared to pause, so I launched into, “Look here, I don‟t

know who you think you are…” But then he just carried on talking, as if I was

not even there.

“When you sip it,” he testified, awe oozing with each word from his lips, “even a

drop of it, something dramatic in your life is transformed!” He raised both hands

as if revealing the fantastic outcome of a magic trick. “And, if you have a cold or

flu at the time you sip it,” he smiled with admiration, “not only will you feel very

well, in a matter of seconds, but the cold or flu virus in your body then makes

the soup even more powerful!”

“Oh come on!” I shouted. I couldn‟t hold it in. But he did not appear to hear me.

„Oh my God,‟ I thought, „was he deaf as well as blind?‟ It was then that it began

dawning on me that I had a bit of a situation on my hands. I am not good with

people who have real problems. In that moment, I felt for the first time in a long

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while, that I was losing control of my thing, whatever my thing was. He was

messing with my mojo. „Please let him just get up and leave,‟ I pleaded with no

one inside my head. But no, just more words.

“Also,” he continued with great sincerity, “the soup never goes off. It has been

stabilized!” This was incredulous! I was going to have put a stop to it, but at the

precise moment that I felt compelled to throw something at him, or him at

something, he stopped, turned his head toward me, and sat in silence. It was my

chance.

“I don‟t mind saying so right here in front of everybody,” I declared with great

authority, “but you are a lunatic. I am sorry you are blind, and apparently quite

deaf too, but you are an idiot. And this whole thing you are doing here in my

restaurant, well, it is not even funny.” I put my hands on my hips for audience

effect. “You come in here, you accept my personal hospitality, and then you

publicly insult my food! I think it is time for you to leave.” He smiled, leaned

forward slightly, and then just carried on talking, seemingly oblivious of my rising

infuriation.

“Many carry this special chicken soup in small copper containers around their

necks. They report that they only require opening and smelling the container

briefly to receive great, unexpected, benefits.” He stopped and looked up at me

like one expecting fascinated admiration. It was then that it occurred to me that

he may not be blind. Maybe he was a deaf man with dark glasses and a blind

man‟s stick? Maybe the deafness caused him to lose balance or something? This

caused me to speak louder so as to get him to hear me.

“Oh bloody rubbish!” I spat very loudly. I should have walked away right then,

but I had chosen his table to be my focus for the evening. Now it definitely was.

People at the back of the restaurant were standing up to get a better view.

People who had been on the terrace and in the outside courtyard were filing in

and standing against the walls. I had become Oprah, and this „guest‟ was me. He

had taken control of my show. However, my audience would not be satisfied if I

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upped and left the scene like Oprah did. I also could not just stand there like a

dummy, taking this kind of abuse from a total stranger, not with all my people

bearing witness.

“Firstly,” I retorted from my throne of absolute authority on the matter, “soup

cannot do any of that. It‟s soup. And secondly,” I declared even more

emphatically, “soup doesn‟t do that! So it doesn‟t and won‟t. And what soup

doesn‟t do it can‟t because it won‟t. Because it‟s soup.” I realized I was babbling

like a complete moron.

“Do you think you, of your own will, chose this table tonight?” he asked calmly.

“No, it was the soup that pulled you to me,” he declared. The diners and

onlookers applauded. To them it was a good line. Had I planted this guy here,

many of them most likely wondered? It was exactly the sort of prank I was

known for. No, I definitely had not, but I felt as if someone had planted me there.

“For heaven‟s sakes,” I felt the skin on my face flush, “soup doesn‟t pull!”

“Yes it does.” He replied matter-of-factly. “All soup has some pull to it. Some

soups have a greater pull than others.” The clientele responded with laughter

and applause.

“Give me one example of soup pulling anything?” I turned to the diners for

support, and they heckled and jeered playfully.

“A mother‟s soup is very strong,” answered the blind tourist without hesitation.

“It can pull her children home to see her.” The audience applauded. “And yours

too has great pulling power. This great soup maker I speak of has even heard

about you and how your soup pulls people from all over the world to come to

your Souperman‟s Kitchen.” The crowd roared with approval. They were

supporting me by agreeing with him, but yet I felt completely alone in this.

Fortunately, I had a comeback. It was one of those rare moments when I got to

deliver „the line‟ before the moment had past, and not in imagined hindsight. I

waited for the diners to quieten, and then I pounced:

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“My point exactly sir!” I smiled triumphantly. I had this in the bag. “These people

don‟t come for the soup,” I turned to my audience, “even though I make the

best soup in the world.” I paused. “They come to see, me!” The audience

jumped to their feet and gave me a resounding show of support, then sat down

just as swiftly so as not to stop „the show‟. I was hoping that would be the finale

and I could walk away relatively unscathed. Not so.

“Ha-ha-ha,” laughed the tourist heartily. He wasn‟t even looking at me half the

time he spoke. It was infuriating. “The soup maker said you would say that. He

said you would say very funny things like that. Ha-ha-ha.” The audience didn‟t

respond to him at all. Silence filled the room.

“Not so funny now, is it?” I jeered. I felt confident enough to declare my

celebrity royalty. “I work hard to be the most well known reality television chef in

the world! Do you know how many people come here each year to eat my

soup?”

“About 1 1fourteen 227. Do you want to know how many adults, women and

children, people of color and homosexuals eat your soup too, and which group

prefers what soup? Last year you turned away 11 customers because of bad

checks.” A hushed silence enveloped the room. They could see I was suddenly,

genuinely, uncomfortable. How did this complete stranger know my total figure

from last year? I had no response. “And,” he continued firmly, “the great soup

maker said that if you extended your outer deck by 10 meters, over there [he

pointed with his blind stick causing me to hop out the way as it sailed past my

face], the extra tables would guarantee you hit the 1 220 000 mark that is your

career goal for this establishment.” I was both entranced and disturbed.

“The soup maker said that?” I blurted. Now he had my full attention.

No one on earth knew those two figures. This was also the moment the visible

presence of a full house of clientele appeared to withdraw into my periphery.

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“He did say that, yes,” said the blind tourist, calmly, softening his voice, bringing

me in closer.

“So, so you are not just another tourist?” I lowered my voice, stepping even

closer.

“Oh, yes, I am a tourist. But tonight I am also a messenger.” Something inside

me wanted to flee, like the moment just before a rollercoaster plummets down

the first slope. But like that sort of moment, I was already strapped in and

dropping. I couldn‟t think. I was panicking. I stood there, lost in the middle of

my own kingdom. It was obvious to everyone, and me, that my “Souperman!‟”

façade had slipped off and fallen onto the floor. Adam Man stood naked, a chef

run out of ingredients. “I really do think I need to drink a double of something

strong right now,” I muttered to nobody, not even myself.

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5. TASTING REAL CHICKEN

“If you are thirsty, maybe you would like to have a sip of Mr. Soup‟s

chicken soup,” the blind tourist suggested with a sneaky smile and reflecting

glint in his dark glasses.

“You actually have some? Here?” The unexpected invitation recaptured my full

attention.

“Yes, but only one teaspoonful.”

“One teaspoonful!? Who carries around one teaspoonful of soup?”

“One teaspoon is possibly all a man like you can handle.” He replied matter-of-

factly.

“Well,” I said, seizing the moment to make one last desperate grab at any shred

of credibility, “one teaspoonful is all I need to know whether this is worth calling

great chicken soup. So out with it, where is it?” His hands reached up and

removed a necklace that had been hidden beneath his jacket. On it dangled a

tiny copper container with a wooden screw-top. He stood up, turned toward me,

felt for my face, unscrewed it, and with one hand on my cheek, instructed me:

“Open your mouth Souperman. Tilt your head back slightly and lift your tongue.

It must go under the tongue. Hold it there for a few seconds before swallowing.”

„Whatever,‟ I thought, but did as told.

I felt the body-temperature liquid meet my saliva, and then I shuddered

deliciously. For a second or two I felt disorientated. The next thing I remember

was the same gentleman handing me a napkin. I was apparently sobbing, or at

least my body was. My mind was empty, like a clean white sheet, yet I was

awash with feelings that tried to be named, but that escaped any conclusive

description. The only taste I recognized was chicken. It was as if the only taste I

23

could taste was chicken, and that all the other tastes I could also taste were not

actually tastes as I thought taste to be, and so I had no nameable taste that my

vocabulary could use to capture and label the experience. It was in this respect

the most chicken chicken-tasting chicken my mouth had ever relished. It was as

if all other chicken flavoring from other chicken products I had ever tasted had

been a mocking shadow and a distasteful echo of what chicken really tastes like.

I felt like I was the first human to ever be tasting real chicken on planet earth.

“It‟s…it‟s…” I grinned tearfully with naked delight.

“Yes,” the gentleman‟s body language encouraged the words from of my mouth.

“It‟s, it‟s chicken soup!” Some of the audience applauded, but some were

starting to look embarrassed. Some even had uncomfortable fearfulness in their

eyes.

“Yes!” agreed the tourist with triumphant pride.

“It‟s really, really chicken soup isn‟t it?!” I declared, as if discovering a lover

who had been missing and long presumed dead.

“Yes,” he agreed again. “I told you, it‟s the best chicken soup in the world.”

“How, how many people know about this?” I was in awe, in reverence even.

“There are many that know about it, but there is only one who can make it. Well,

him and his wife, of course. And, there is only one man that he wants to share

this recipe with…” He looked at me, beaming. “You!” he announced to everyone

as if I was a grand prize winner.

“Me?” I felt like a child being given a gold star for doing well in my very first test.

“Yes, you, Souperman.” The restaurant was now silent. It was likely that by then

only a few were left wondering if this was indeed a deliberate show. Most of the

dinners were likely already aware that something disturbing was unfolding,

publicly.

“But why? Why does he want me?” I asked, feeling genuinely undeserving of

such a high accolade.

24

“He used to have a television set, so he has seen you in action. He, with some

disappointment in your extremely flawed character, believes that nevertheless,

you are the most devoted man, other than him and his wife of course, to soup.

And, he knows about that childhood thing too.”

“That childhood thing…too?”

He leant in my direction a little and lowered his voice slightly, as if not wanting

to let a family secret out in public. “The chicken soup in-ci-dent.”

“How does he…?” I was stunned.

“Mr. Soup told me that that incident is why you were called by the soup. It‟s

personal with you. You are very rich, but you never really thought about the

money, did you?” He was right. The soup thing went deep into my childhood.

And, I did not start making soup to make money. I made money because I

started making soup.

As a young boy I used to rock on my chair at the dinner table. Both my mother

and father constantly reprimanded me, telling me I would hurt myself and/or

break the chair. But I used to do it unawares, like tapping my foot to music.

Then one night the chair rocked back slightly beyond the point of no return. It

stayed in that fated position only long enough for me to make a final lunge at

redemption, but all I managed to grab hold of was a bowl of steaming chicken

soup. The back of the chair slammed into the floor, and the bowl slammed

perfectly into my face. If it wasn‟t for my mother coating my skin immediately

with slimy Aloe Vera from our garden, I would have had facial scars today. That

incident could have ended my television career before it had even started. A chef

with a badly scared face does not make appetizing reality television. Fortunately

I had no facial scars, but the blind tourist was indeed touching on a scar. The

fact is I have never been able to make really spectacular chicken soup. It is the

one soup I could not call my own. There is always something missing from the

flavor. And tonight I had finally experienced what that missing ingredient was:

chicken. My chicken soup never really tasted of chicken: it tasted like chicken.

25

The revelation in that moment was that no chicken we eat tastes of chicken, only

like chicken. Yet his chicken soup tasted exactly like chicken, and now, after one

mouthful, I too had tasted what chicken really tastes like.

“But how does he make chicken soup like that?” I asked, not as a question, but

as a statement of ongoing reverence. I was like a smitten fan, like a young boy

in awe of his hero.

“This is why I am here,” he said in a confidential tone. “The soup maker, Mr.

Soup, used to live in Brazil, on an island thereabouts. Then, because of a virus

that attacked his brain, he went completely deaf and mute, and so decided to

move to a settlement on the Amazon River that is only for the deaf and mute.”

“Isn‟t it more appropriate to say „hard of hearing‟ and „voice challenged‟ than

deaf and mute?” It was a stupid question, but part of me was still desperately

trying to regain some sense of something. Any straw would do. It appeared I

was no longer able to stand up for myself, so I tried standing up for the deaf and

mute.

“No. Everyone who lives there is deaf and mute, no matter how you decide to

say it,” he proclaimed. That didn‟t work out how I had expected.

“I see.”

“They are deaf and mute people, Mr. Souperman, who prefer to live with others

who are also deaf and mute. They allow few visitors, and you are to be an

exception.”

“Me! But it‟s up The Amazon River!”

“Not exactly, it‟s up a tributary that branches off The Amazon River. You must

come. They say he does not have long to live.” I didn‟t believe him about that.

“You must go!” shouted a few of the diners.

“But everyone‟s deaf and dumb for goodness sakes! Do they at least lip-read or

something?”

26

“No, they are not dumb, Mr. Man, just deaf and mute, and they use hand signals.

They have developed their own unique system you see, so don‟t bother learning

any standard hand signal language, that‟s if you decide to come.”

“Then how am I going to speak with him, or anybody? This whole thing sounds

ridiculous!”

“You will have a medium,” he explained encouragingly.

“And how does that work?”

“The medium is an elderly gentleman who was part of their settlement and

instrumental in developing their hand signaling vocabulary. But, after Mr. Soup

moved in, he had a bowl of his great chicken soup and was instantly cured of

both conditions!” He sat back momentarily, paying homage to the memory. “The

medium will watch the speakers‟ hand signals for you and tell you what they are

saying. He will signal to them anything you say. He will be the voice for everyone

for you, as well as your voice for them. It has all been arranged.”

“Why not just give a bowl of soup to everyone in the settlement? Why not heal

them all?”

“The effect of the soup is different for everyone. There is no telling what it will

do when you sip it. The medium is the only one that the soup healed in that way.

The soup did it because it wanted him to become the interpreter for the

community. The soup is like Jesus juice: it decides what each soup sipper‟s

required changes are, not us. Not even Mr. Soup. Mr. Soup can only make the

soup correctly, so that it is available to change sippers‟ lives. But it is the soup

itself that knows what is to be changed by sipping it. Everyone receives special

nourishment from it according to this mystery. The soup is indeed a strange

mystery, Mr. Man. It is alive and very powerful. Now it wants you, Adam Man.”

“But what did I receive from what I have just tasted?” I asked, feeling a bit

bewildered, and also sensing a growing, underlying, irritability.

“Here,” he said leaning forward slightly, “there is one drop left, open your mouth

and let us find out.” I again did as told, and again I swam deliciously into an

experience identical to the initial tasting. The penny dropped immediately. I

27

knew what I had received from this soup. I knew exactly what the soup had

given me. He could sense that I was able to answer the question, and so he

nodded and smiled, again encouraging words from my mouth.

“This chicken…” I said awash within the deliciousness of chicken, pure chicken.

“Yes…” Again he encouraged my words with his delighted expression.

“But it sounds so silly to say it…” I was entranced, floating, feeling as if

something in me had been set free, but also still feeling silly.

“Say it anyway!” he commanded.

“This soup is the first time I have ever tasted anything real!” I declared.

“Yes!”

“It‟s the first time I have ever tasted anything, really!” I confessed.

“Yes!”

“It‟s the first time I have ever actually tasted!” I admitted.

“Hallelujah!” the elderly tourist yelled as he hopped out of his seat and began

blindly dancing a jig in front of us, shouting at the top of his voice to the whole

restaurant: “We are having a Jesus moment here, ladies and gentleman! This

man has had his first taste of Holy Communion. He is in mid-Mass now as we

witness for him! The soup, the Blood of the Lamb, the Holy of Holy Communions,

has hit a home run! The God Almighty switchboard has put a call through and

someone picked it up! This man here,” he declared to a now fixated audience of

about 350 people, “has accomplished the miraculous. The Holy Spirit is about to

speak through his mouth!” He then stopped his little dance and turned to me.

“Tell them Souperman! Tell everyone! Say The Word, make it flesh with your

mouth brother-Man!” He had me so swept up in the moment that I shouted

spontaneously, with all my might:

“I can taste! For the first time in my life I can actually taste

something!”

28

Tears of gratitude streamed from my eyes. “I just had a taste of real chicken

soup!” I professed. “For my whole life I have searched for this moment, for this

taste! The chicken this man served me from around his neck is the first real

chicken I have ever tasted! Now I know there is no real chicken in the world.

The chicken you all eat tastes like chicken, not of chicken. But you would not

know this because none of you can actually taste anything! You think you

taste: but you don‟t. Every dish served in this restaurant of mine is tasteless, can

you not taste that?!”

As I was testifying to the rich, the famous, the group of celebrities in the corner,

the press who followed them around, and who were now madly clicking images

of me from the restaurant entrance, something unexpected happened: I awoke

as if from a trance into the complete devastation of my own empire. I emerged

from a hypnotic-like state, for all to witness, visibly shaken, hypnosis dissolved,

and spell unraveled. I had „arrived back in the room‟. The first thing I became

aware of was the full emptiness of the crowded silence. Then the expressions on

people‟s faces began to have meaning. Then the laughter, hysterical laughter in

every direction I looked. There were some embarrassed faces too, and even

ones that appeared afraid of or for me. Some stared at me, shocked, as if I had

soiled my pants whilst wearing a white outfit and sitting on a cream, silk-

cushioned chair. The Souperman show was clearly over.

29

6. OBSOLESCING MYSELF

By next morning headlines such as “Toss Out The Soup!” caused great

upset to the people closest to me: my family and employees mainly. But it was

the three You Tube videos going viral that encouraged me to finally consider the

invitation to visit Mr. Soup up a tributary of The Amazon River. Three of the

diners had caught the last few moments of my witnessing for chicken soup from

three different angles. All three had over 7 million hits. In 24 hours I went from

being the most famous soup maker on the planet to the most famous fool. It

took three months to sell the restaurant. Things were never the same after that

night. I made no more public appearances for the customers, who now only

came to gawk and laugh. I tried it once, but people started shouting, “Please do

it again! Please testify for The Soup!” Press hounded me for all the wrong

reasons. My wife left. My dog ran away. My wife returned with divorce papers,

and so I left. It was a very long three months of watching the unfolding

consequences of two tastes of that soup. I should have been mad as hell for

having had my perfect life mortared to shreds by the blind tourist, but as each

piece of it fell away, well, it felt like a solid wall that had kept me imprisoned

starting to crumble. But even if the end of my soup empire appeared to bring me

a sense of relief, there was still a part of me that believed that if I could get my

hands on that secret chicken soup recipe, I could build myself back up again.

This time without my wife, a dog that I did not care much for, and without all

the hangers-on that arise around success. „I would take soup making to a whole

new level,‟ I promised myself. This would be my resurrection story: Man shamed.

Man leaves. People forget Man. Man arrives back. Man serves soup. Man is god

of all he sees again. Something like that. Another name for such a mental

strategy is, „revenge‟. My getting my hands on that recipe was my getting my

30

hands back on the steering wheel of my life. „One way or another I would take

control again,‟ I assured myself.

31

7. MEETING MR. SOUP

So there I sat, in front of the great Mr. Soup. I had not washed for days,

with soap anyway, and I am sure I stank. I was the embodiment of disarray and

exhaustion, constantly having to keep my balance on the rickety wooden stool

provided for me. The man sitting before me didn‟t look particularly old, and

definitely not like he was „dying‟. His eyes were alive and penetrating, capturing

my full attention. They shone with intensity many years more youthful than his

physical appearance, which looked robust and vital. I wondered if his eyes had

become so bright because he could not hear or speak.

“Who are you?” his hands signaled. I thought that question immediately odd.

After all, how many visitors do they get here?

“I‟m Adam Man, Sir, Souperman, the one you sent for.”

“No you are not! You do not look at all like the man I saw on television. He was

much taller and laughed all the time.”

“I most certainly am! I assure you! I just don‟t have anything to laugh about

right now. But I assure you I am Souperman.”

“If you insist, but I don‟t see anyone here who looks even vaguely like

Souperman. Where is your $10 bill? Why are you not waving it around? Where is

the champagne?” His fingers demanded.

“I did not come here to do a cooking show.”

“Then what are you doing here? We were expecting some entertainment. You

don‟t look funny at all. I mean, you look funny, but you are not.” He examined

me closely, up and down, apparently looking for evidence of funniness. “No, I

don‟t see it.” He appeared really disappointed.

“I am not here to be funny, Sir. I am here to learn the secrets of the chicken

soup recipe.”

32

“Really?” He sat bolt upright. “I am sorry to hear that, because such a pitiful

statement coming from your mouth makes it obvious I cannot teach you

anything. We are only learning when we are laughing, Mr. Man. You have not

smiled once since you sat down here. In fact, you look like a very, very angry

man. I learned a lot from your show, if that was indeed you. I laughed at you all

the time. But look at you now! I would not even allow you in my kitchen in this

state! It will spoil the soup. You are a mess!” He slapped both his knees and let

out a sigh, accompanied by facial expressions of ever deepening disappointment.

“Too bad,” he fingered, as if to himself. “What a terrible waste.”

“Of course you can teach me,” I pleaded. “I came a long way. I am sure I could

be funny again after a shower and change of clothing. I will be funny after a rest,

I am sure of it, and then you can show me how to make the soup.”

“But there is no one here to show anything to.” he said firmly.

“But I am the best soup maker I know, that must be worth something.”

“Tell me about the other soup makers that you know?”

“Uh, well, there‟s…actually I don‟t appear to know any others right now.”

“You have never been interested in other soup makers?”

“No, not until you sent me a sample of yours.”

“Do you know if you are even making soup? I bet you don‟t even know what

soup is! You are asking to be taught something, when what you are asking for, is

clearly not what you think it is in the first place.” What?

“What do I have to do to qualify?” I put on the expression and tone of „the eager

student‟.

“What, what, what…why, why, why…when, when, when…where, where,

where…how, how, how…who, who, who?” His fingers chanted almost mockingly,

almost annoyingly, and definitely disappointedly. He sat up straight again for a

moment and looked me up and down. “Tell me something true about yourself

that you would never tell anyone alive, ever.”

33

The moment his fingers made the signals for that instruction, I already heard the

sentence in my mind‟s ear. “Yes,” he chuckled, “that one! What is that you are

thinking? Say that!” I didn‟t want to, but I had been in a longboat for two days,

before that a small prop fishing boat for four days, and before that a small ferry

boat for a week. I came for the soup and I wanted the soup. I also needed a

break before having to again toilet over the side of a boat with everyone

watching. So I spoke it:

“I really, really hate myself. I hate Souperman. I hate him.” I said awkwardly,

but with undeniable rage leaking out the edges of my voice.

“Ha-ha-ha!” he exploded with laughed. “You are far too serious! Ha-ha-ha!” he

slapped his knees. “Now that is funny! I can see you speak truthfully too. Very

good Adam Man! There is hope for you yet. I am glad you said it was

Souperman you hate, and not Adam Man, because they are not the same thing.

Don‟t worry,” he leaned over and patted my knee, and then sat back, “I love to

hate television too, especially the advertising. But it is actually all very funny.”

I was clueless as to what he was speaking about, but I was relieved he was no

longer pushing up against my arrival.

“Okay,” he now slapped his own knees. “Adam Man, Mr. Souperman, I was only

having some fun with you.” A kind smile warmed his whole face. He was

immediately very likeable and I felt instant relief. “Welcome to the

accommodation. Of course, I will show you everything I know about making

chicken soup. I wanted to see how messed up you really are, that is all. We are

our only entertainment here at the accommodation, so when we have a visitor,

we have to make the most of it.” He leaned forward and again patted my knee.

“You are a good sport!”

“And how…” He didn‟t wait for me to finish my sentence.

“We start first thing in the morning with the killing of about fourteen chickens.

There is a sharpened machete in your room, bring it with you. You have killed

chickens before?” I knew I had to be honest, and so appear ridiculous. “Well, no.

34

I get mine from a really, really good store though…free range…grain

fed…organic,” as if that made a difference at all.

“We cannot make our chicken soup with dead chickens from a store.” His fingers

stated matter-of-factly. “They have to be live ones from the chicken pen,” he

emphasized. “If you miss that step you might as well buy a can of chicken broth

and add hot water to it.” He stood up and signaled toward the medium. “Make

sure our Souperman gets a bowl of soup for dinner. Serve the one we made two

years ago, it is warming by the boiler.” Then he looked at me directly. “My

apologies Mr. Man, but if we gave you fresh chicken soup with the condition you

are in, well, you would be down on the floor in some dark corner, in a fetal

position, crying for your mother. Although that would be entertaining for us, it

possibly would not be that much for you. We intend your short stay here to be

as comfortable as possible.” He again looked at the medium, which caused me to

momentarily turn toward him as well, and by the time I turned back, Mr. Soup

was already walking briskly away. He did not move like an old man at all. He

bounced along as if his body was as light as a feather. By the time my head

turned back from watching him, the medium was also already walking away in

the opposite direction, toward our dwellings. I stood up clumsily, knocking the

stool over as I did so, righted it noisily, and scurried after him like a newfound

lost puppy after its feeder.

“So, are we going to have dinner now? I am quite hungry,” I said as I caught up

to his back. He didn‟t reply or even acknowledge my presence. He was

apparently not there to talk to me, only to translate. And, there was no one I

could talk to without him. They could not hear, did not read lips, and I did not

understand any of their high speed finger maneuvers. Talking‟s traditionally

accepted place in my experience was being gradually repositioned. No one on

the boat coming upriver could understand me either, nor I them. I had already

been in days of verbal isolation. To add to this, I now listened by watching hands

and facial expressions, and by hearing everything that was hand signaled spoken

35

through a voice coming from a blur in my extreme right hand side peripheral

vision. Something within me felt lost on a level I had not experienced before. I

felt unplugged. I had once been hailed as „the greatest communicator on reality

television‟, but now I was dumbfounded. I was in solitary voice confinement.

36

8. DREAMING SLEEP

The medium pulled out a chair at the table and indicated that I sit. He

placed a copper bowl of steaming chicken soup in front of me and walked

immediately to his bunk, took off his shoes, slid under the blanket, and lay with

his back facing me. Even though I was on some level already completely alone, I

now finally felt alone. I looked at the soup. The aroma that had engulfed the

room when he had brought in the pot had already caused me to feel deeply

relaxed and strangely calmed. It was as if my nasal passages gained nutritional

benefits simply through the aroma.

What color was this soup? „A milky, creamy color that doesn‟t really have color to

it, but is so delicious looking‟, is all my thinking could suggest. I tried to attach

an opinion to the appearance of the liquid in the copper bowl before me, but

there was none to have about it. The last time I had tasted this soup was the

last time I had really been “Souperman!” One teaspoon, and a drop thereafter,

had dismantled the life I had worked so hard to manufacture. Now I sat with a

whole bowlful. I should have been scared, and maybe I was, a little, but a larger

part of me could not feel afraid. After all, what was I eating here? Chicken soup,

right? Whoever heard of someone being afraid of chicken soup?

I dipped my spoon and fed my mouth. I ladled spoon after spoon after spoon,

like a dehydrated man who had stumbled out of the Sahara sun with his first

drink of fresh, cool sweet, oasis water. I finished by scraping the bottom of the

bowl with the spoon. Then I picked the bowl up and licked it, getting my chin

souped. I felt no need to wipe it off, or even to lick my fingers after rubbing up

any missed streaks. The soup felt soothing on my skin. Within seconds of

37

finishing it, I felt a deep weariness well up from my feet. I knew that if I did not

head directly for my bunk, I would, spend, the, night… The last image I recalled

was a copper bowl jumping up at my face, this time, lickidy-dry.

I then became aware I was sitting with Mr. Soup under a tree with a grand view

of the entire accommodation and the river sloping down beneath our feet. “Did

you enjoy your soup?” he hand signaled to a voice coming from my periphery.

“Yes, thank you,” I replied. “It was delicious and I fell asleep straight away. If I

recall, I…”

“Sleep? Tell me what sleep is?”

“You know, sleeping?”

“No, I do not. I have never done it. This is why I required more information

about it. Please, humor me?” It sounded like an ask-able question.

“Well, sleep is what you do when you go to bed. You lie down and you sleep.

You sleep, with blankets and pillows.”

“Is something happening during this sleep?” His fingers inquired.

“Dreaming, or nothing. That‟s about it. Some people believe they astral travel,

but I think that is possibly from too much blue cheese with the pears.” His

fingers chuckled.

“Is there a purpose to sleeping?” His fingers asked.

“You get tired if you don‟t.”

“Tired of what?” His eyes looked directly into mine.

“Well, the body gets tired, exhausted even, without sleep.”

“Really? The body becomes tired of being awake?”

“Yes.”

“Nonsense! It carries on functioning without ever taking a holiday from its

operations. When last did your body say, „Sorry, it is The Sabbath, so I am not

pumping blood today‟? The body only retires when you tire of being in it, and it

only ages when you start feeling old.” He looked at me curiously. “Maybe it is

you that is tired of being awake?”

38

“But everybody sleeps.”

“Since when did democracy determine what is true about anything? To know

something truly we must forget what others think is true. No, your body has no

limits other than those the labyrinth of your mind places upon it. Your body is

not tired, but it appears you are tired of being awake.”

“Me, tired of being awake? I‟ve never thought about it that way?” „Is that even

possible,‟ I wondered?

“That is it exactly,” exclaimed Mr. Soup. His hand patted me gratefully upon my

knee. “Thank you for that vital insight. You, Mr. Man, are tired of being awake.

Well, now that we have discovered why you think you need to sleep, tell me

about this dreaming you do when you do this thing you call sleep?”

“Dreaming is when you are asleep and see images, like a movie, that you are

part of somehow, but not. They are mostly hard to remember.”

“Maybe because you are so tired of being awake?” his fingers quipped.

“Maybe, I must admit I do feel tired all the time these days,” I responded.

“If you keep saying that out loud you will have to carry a bed with you wherever

you go!” He hand signaled laugher with added joyful facial expressions. “Do you

know that most people spend all day talking themselves into the limitations they

then accuse others of imposing upon them?”

“What?”

“What I communicating Adam, Souperman, is that there is no such thing as

sleep.”

“But…” His hand raised and silenced me.

“Listening is not your best trait, is it? Unless of course it is your own voice that is

speaking,” he signaled gently, but firmly. “Careful not to use your words to argue

in favor of your own littleness.” I quieted and listened. Something within me

relaxed and I felt an opening. „This must be what listening is,‟ my thoughts

observed.

“Good. Adam, Souperman,” his fingers acknowledged my softening. “Now, listen,

there is no such thing as sleep. If there were, you and I would not be having this

39

conversation right now.” As his fingers signaled that piece of information, ever-

expanding concentric circles started arising in everything. I suddenly felt myself

falling backward, like the chicken soup incident of my childhood. Mr. Soup calmly

reached out and touched my chest gently with his forefinger. Everything

stabilized and he smiled comfortingly. “You can stay here and stay awake, Adam,

comprehende?” I relaxed and allowed and everything felt stable again. “Right

now your body is still at the table with your face down in a soup bowl, snoring. If

you are here, and there, you are obviously not sleeping. And, if we are having

this conversation, then you are obviously not dreaming. Look,” he reached over

and prodded my knee, “I can touch you and you can feel it. What am I touching

if you are not here?”

“I don‟t know? It could be a very lucid dream,” I remarked.

He stood up, faced me, and in a lightning instant, back-hand slapped me across

my right cheek. It was like a spring-sprung whiplash. I reeled, rolled over

sideways and then forward, and then fell onto the ground in front of the bench.

The soil a few inches from my face looked very real. I watched red blood and

saliva dripping from my mouth onto a bright green leaf. I grabbed at the pain in

my face. I felt electrocuted. It took me a few moments to right myself back onto

the bench. I was stunned numb. I looked up and he was just sitting there, his

body bobbing slightly, grinning like an adorable, mischievous child. “Hey Adam,”

he signaled. “Having a good dream are you?”

“That was…”

“Say it!”

“That was fucking sore!”

“Point made. I rest my case. This is all too real to be a dream.”

“But everyone sleeps.” Something in me was fighting to hold onto something in

me that was fighting to hold on. I put my fingers to my lips and they came back

with warm blood on them, real wet, warm blood.

40

“Everyone calls it sleep,” Mr. Soup signaled. “The closest humans have got to

describing what happens when they sleep is with waveforms on printouts, and

that tells us nothing. Accurately defined by ignorant human perception of it,

sleep can be described as something you do when you go to bed. You don‟t

remember much of it. You dream sometimes, but these are simply memories or

indigestion, you say. You wake up, sometimes rested, mostly not. You do it with

pajamas in a bed that you make as comfortable as possible, possibly because

you are actually tired of being awake, and sleep is the only place you can hide

from this wakeful tiredness. Is this definition about right?” he raised his right

eyebrow.

“That‟s about it Mr. Soup.” My tongue searched the inside of my mouth. I was

sure I had a wobbly tooth.

“What utter nonsense! The whole world believes in utter nonsense! There is no

such thing as sleep, and there are no such things as dreams. There are just

other worlds you run to as a means to hide from the reality that you are bone

tired of being in this one. And you have even found a way to hide this running

off from yourselves, which is actually good, because many people would rather

lie in bed all day, visiting other worlds, than engage the challenging one into

which they were born. „Parallel world junkies‟ are what we call them. They are

only looking for a fix, to get addicted to another illusion, and then to turn that

into something religious. Then they are done for. Are you looking for a fix,

another illusion, or a new religion perhaps, Mr. Man?”

“No, but I am looking to be fixed, though I don‟t even know what of anymore?” I

noticed the pain was gone, like a memory I could not quite retrieve.

“That is an acceptable response, but not funny enough yet! Remember, no

laughing, no remembering. Don‟t worry Mr. Man, you will soon remember how to

laugh at yourself again, even with others watching. Then you will have wonderful

entertainment that lasts forever.” I surveyed the scene in which we sat.

Everything looked real enough to me. If it was a dream I was in, it was not like

any dream I had ever had before.

41

“So I am actually here, but I am also not, because I am also in the dwelling?”

“I can give you proof.”

“Okay.” He stood up and faced me.

“Ready?” I did not know whether I should grimace?

“Yes.”

“Wake Up!!! Wake-up! Wakey-wakey! Rise and shine!” His fingers

screamed loudly. I just sat there and looked curiously at him as he crumpled

over silently, shaking, and hand-signaling „hilarious laughter‟. He eventually sat

up and wiped his eyes. “Well, that did not work did it?” He smiled kindly at me.

“Maybe this will? Tell me Adam Man,” his fingers signaled, “where is the medium?

Is he actually here with us?” It felt like effortful slow motion as I turned my head

to the right to look at the medium. But there was nobody sitting in my periphery.

For a moment everything froze and became cold-quiet. Then I heard a

“ZzzzzzzzzingSSSSSSsssssChrchrchrchrchrSssT!” As I turned back to try to say

something, the ever-expanding concentric circles of shimmering ripples arose

again in everything, brightening the whole world momentarily by the rippled-

reflections they were casting, hypnotizing me away from any self-awareness.

I felt something gently pushing on my right shoulder. I opened my eyes. My face

was still in the bowl, cold copper against my skin. I lifted myself, and the bowl

stuck momentarily to me before its weight overcame. It clanged onto the table

like an unexpected alarm clock, jarring the moment wide open. I was still there,

in the dwelling, but I was also back from a „there version of here‟ that apparently

wasn‟t here. I hadn‟t slept at all, or dreamt, apparently. I remembered the entire

encounter under the tree with Mr. Soup as clearly as I recalled tasting the

chicken soup for the very first time. The medium immediately removed the bowl

and handed me a towel.

How can anyone communicate, „Wash off the mess you have made of yourself

and then get ready for killing chickens‟ so clearly, without saying a single word?

42

The medium knew how. I always knew exactly what he required without him

ever saying a word to me directly. It was as if he became what he required to

communicate in any given moment. He also spoke without exaggerated body

gesture or voice. It was as if his being ever so slightly leaned into his intent, and

then I naturally filled in all the gaps, like it was already said or done, and he was

simply pointing me into realizing it. I always understood his communication

completely. There were no crass charades either. He was elegant, always

elegant, even when rudely refusing to converse with me. He also had an

uncanny way of making me say the things out loud that really needed to be said,

so that he didn‟t have to. Then he would nod and carry on. When we were alone,

the only voice I ever heard was mine, and most of the time I was verbalizing one

of his unspoken instructions out loud, so that I would know what we were going

to do next without him having to say anything. Was he really there?

43

9. CHASING CHICKENS

I stood nervously, slightly in front of the medium, at Mr. Soup‟s kitchen

door, machete in hand. The top half of the door was open, allowing the morning

sun to cast it as an elongated shadow against the bright, white, dwelling wall. He

leaned on the door‟s closed bottom, almost to his chin, with his fingers free

enough to chat.

“Good morning. Did you enjoy the rest?” he asked.

“Yes, and, Mr. Soup, I remem...” He put his hand up to silence me.

“The way we do not get tired of being awake,” he said firmly, “is to not talk

about the rest. The rest is for when we rest from here. While here however, we

rest from the rest. Rest is important. So let it rest.” His words made no sense to

me, but I gathered I was not supposed to talk about what had happened after

sipping the soup. His face cracked into a huge grin. “So, you had a good rest

then? Is this what you are attempting to communicate?” asked his fingers.

“I did. Yes, thank you.”

“Me too!” he grinned mischievously. “Now, let‟s kill…how many chickens did we

say we were going to kill this morning?” His fingers barely finished asking that of

us when a woman with short-cropped, dark hair appeared like a bird over his

shoulder. Her long slender arms crept up and hung around his neck like feathers

so that her fingers could chat.

“Good morning Mr. Man. Did you have a good rest?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you! Very good in fact.” I said deliberately. I was still „trying‟. She

looked at me blankly, like someone who had completely missed a punch line.

Then she winked and grinned welcomingly.

“My name is Mrs. Soup. I am the one who makes sure the recipe for the chicken

soup does not develop shortcuts. So there will be no less than fourteen chickens

44

killed for the pot. No short cuts! Short cuts are little wounds.” She waved and

disappeared into the shadows of the dwelling behind him.

“You heard Mrs. Soup. fourteen it is then,” signaled Mr. Soup. He looked me

straight in the eyes. “Take your machete and get started. The chicken pen is

over there.” I turned and about 100 meters away was a large fenced-off pen

which enclosed many, many wandering and pecking chickens. My gut twitched

and turned. I really did not want to kill a chicken. I just wanted the recipe.

After two hours I collapsed onto my knees and dropped the machete at my side.

I was too tired to hold onto it. By this time a large group of people had gathered

and were all laughing at me with their fingers. It was a funny, silent,

unappreciated, applause. I thought of giving them the finger, but I couldn‟t

move any of mine. My hands were too tired to speak. I could hardly breathe.

Sweat drenched my dust-stained clothing. I had been determined not to fail, but

I had, miserably. I had run and run and run, and not even touched a bloody

chicken. These chickens were fit, strong, fast, and all I wanted to do now was kill

one. I wanted bloody, pulverized chicken all over my hands!

The thought of blood and chicken was obliterated by a shocking blast of ice cold

water. I stood up in recoil and was hit again from another direction, and again,

and again, and again, and once more. From overheating I was instantly iced. As

my vision cleared I saw a group of people walking away, carrying copper buckets.

In front of me stood Mrs. Soup, clearly, silently, giggling. To my right and slightly

back, in his regular position, stood the medium, also soaked. Even though he

was in my periphery, and a silent blur, I could see that he too was clearly

giggling. True to his word, Mr. Soup and the accommodation occupants were

making the most of any possibility for entertainment. I was the main attraction,

but for the first time in my life I honestly knew that I did not want to be that for

others, not anymore.

45

“Undress!” Mrs. Soup‟s fingers commanded firmly.

“Right here?” I asked, in disbelief. “There are people watching everywhere.” „And

there is also you standing right in front of me,‟ I thought. She looked directly at

my crotch.

“I am sure it is not big enough to tempt me.” Fingers laughed from unknown

onlookers. “Strip down and put this on.” She held a sarong out to me. I stripped

hastily, but then she playfully held back the sarong. Her eyes examined my penis

carefully, like a geologist examining a fossil, cocking her head slightly this way

and that. “No,” her fingers concluded. “It is just as I expected, nothing

happening here.” I looked down at myself. “No! Don‟t do that, you will only

upset yourself!” Her fingers laughed so kindly and playfully that I was disarmed

and laughed along. “Very good Mr. Man, if you can laugh at your own penis

while it is being laughed at playfully by a woman, then you will never become a

dick.” It was funny. “And,” she concluded, “then we would have one less dic-

tator on the planet.” She, like all I had met so far [except the medium] laughed

at her own joke as if it was the first time she had ever heard it. Only once Mrs.

Soup was done laughing [which felt like eternity to a naked man standing in

front of a crowd of people fingering him with the word „hilarious!‟] did she hand

me the sarong. I was ever-so-glad to receive it, but by the time I wrapped it on

there was nothing more to hide.

I was about to say something about that, but she immediately turned and left,

not allowing for any response. The challenge in interacting with the deaf and

mute people in the accommodation, and with my medium, I was discovering,

was that I could not shout after them. When they decide they were done with

me there is no last ditch effort for me to get the final word in edgeways about

anything. They simply turned and walk off, and whatever was going on was

declared complete. I suspected they knew this rattled me, and so did it more

than necessary. As I was contemplating this, Mrs. Soup turned back slightly to

hand signal. “Mr. Soup is waiting for you under the tree, over there.” He was too,

46

as a mysterious silhouette in the shade, watching everything, and patiently

expecting my company.

As I started walking toward him my tongue found a tooth which appeared to be

a little loose. I put my hand up to my jaw and noticed my cheek skin felt very

sensitive, a little bruised even.

47

10. THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE

“So, no chickens,” he chuckled silently. The sign for chuckling is a

momentary continuous rolling of the fingers with palm faced up, like playing an

air guitar lead solo without moving your hand up and down the non-physical

guitar neck. When you did that with palm facing down, which is a bit like playing

a non-physical air piano, it meant „disappointment‟.

“No, no chickens,” I said apologetically. He played a bit of air piano.

“And look, there in front of us,” he sighed, “possibly two hundred of them,

wandering around aimlessly. Do you know how stupid a chicken is Mr. Man?”

“Well, I‟ve heard…”

“Chickens were created deliberately completely stupid so that we would not have

to sweat to get delicious ingredients for our soup. You obviously do not know

this.” There is nothing like someone else stating the obvious. “You and your

wonderful performance here, this morning, trying to catch stupid chickens, is an

embodiment of humanity‟s current dilemma. Mr. Man, you have successfully

demonstrated how humanity approaches just about everything these days. It is

called, stupid. You see, the chicken is the most stupid creature in the world, and

so to run around chasing one in order to catch one is to become more stupid

than a chicken. You cannot chase stupid things, they are too unpredictable. You

simply have to fool them, and because they are stupid, they are easily fooled.

Intelligent things on the other hand are much harder to fool, but much easier to

chase.” Finger signals for laughter. “This is why everyone found your

performance so funny: they were watching a creature behaving more stupidly

than a chicken. It is a bit like a human trying to live a lifestyle designed by the

requirements of machines instead of the requirements of humans, same thing,

very stupid.”

48

His fingers paused. He looked at me for a response, but I was too worn out to

give one. “You see,” he continued, his fingers flicking, curling and twist-pointing,

“we have the upper hand here at the accommodation. We like to talk. No, we

love to talk. The challenge is, because we use hand-signaling, we cannot talk

and work at the same time. And one-handed talk just leads to slang, and so to

eventual babble. Imagine how a predicament such as ours would complicate a

therapist‟s or hairdresser‟s job?” He slapped his knees, thoroughly enjoying his

own silent laughter. “If we had to chase chickens around all day, like you just did,

then there would be no conversation for days on end! Everybody would be like

you are right now, too tired to lift a finger!” His fingers laughed loudly. Then he

sat quietly for a moment, staring at me and shaking his head. “Look over there

Mr. Man,” he pointed. About twenty five meters away, extending out of the huge

chicken pen and into the shade of another large tree, was a long tube made of

rolled-up fencing. Mr. Soup explained:

“The fencing tube opens up into the big chicken pen. After a meter or two from

where the tube exits that enclosure, it becomes systematically

compartmentalized. Each compartment contains a small food and water tray.

Each compartment also contains a wire, fin-like flap that allows chickens to move

forward, but not to turn around and go back. Once a chicken enters the first

compartment, it starts nibbling until another nudges it forward, or it realizes it

cannot turn around, and so moves forward. For today we have attached fourteen

compartments. Each compartment can then be closed on both sides, easily

detached, and carried off with the handle on the top.” In the time it took Mr.

Soup to explain this, seven chickens were already in the tunnel, and two were

already in the partitions. It was simple genius. “The process becomes even more

efficient of you do not to feed them the night before.” His fingers added.

“Wow!” I was impressed. “That is brilliant! So there are advantages in having to

talk with your hands.” He looked at me, shook his head and laughed. “No, what I

49

mean was, you then have to figure out how to make things work for you, so that

you can still communicate freely while work gets done…the implications of this

are mind-blowing.”

“But you also talk all day long with your fingers, Mr. Man, all day long.”

“No I don‟t.”

“You do indeed. You simply cannot see it, because you are blind.” I put my hand

up to object, but he ignored me. “Most of humanity now talks to each other with

their fingertips only. It‟s called email, Facebook, blogging, texting, You Tube, and

sending Sms‟s. It is all talking with fingers, just like us. The difference is you are

not really talking to each other, not directly, so not at all. You are all talking

directly to a machine. The machine is your medium. And that medium is your

message. Just as the gentleman standing just behind you is our medium, and so

he is also our message. But he is real, as in not manufactured, whereas your

medium, the machine, is manufactured, and so is a fantastical fantasy. Do you

understand what I am revealing here Mr. Man?”

“Not really.”

“Mr. Man, you cannot unplug the medium standing behind you. You cannot even

get him to talk to you!” Finger chuckle. “However, all machines do these days is

talk to you, and allow you to talk to them, all day long, and all night long. They

appear very efficient, but yet they can be so easily unplugged. They have an off

switch. You cannot even find our medium‟s on switch! Ha-ha-ha!”

“Are you asserting that because we talk with our fingers to a machine that it isn‟t

real communication, whereas because you talk with yours through a man, it is?”

“Very good Adam, almost, but not quite: I am stating that the medium is the

message, and so the medium is the massage, the rub being in its presence.”

“Well, there is where you lose me a bit, Mr. Soup.”

“I am not referring to the content of the medium, which is where humanity is

currently, hypnotically, focused. I am referring to the effect of its presence upon

humans. I am stating that the message of the medium is not found in the

obviousness of its content, but in the effect of its very existence. And, as its

50

existence unfolds and evolves, the medium then invariably determines the

content. It starts to run its own show, so to speak. The medium is therefore the

message.”

“So are you stating that using a machine, as opposed to using a man, to

communicate something, have very different impacts on the one receiving the

message?”

“Yes, and also on the one sending the message: I am stating that the effect of

the content of any medium upon the sender and receiver of it, is secondary to

the effect caused by the impact of the presence of the chosen medium of

communication upon the sender or receiver‟s lifestyle.” Huh? “I am stating that

our chosen method of communication directly impacts every aspect of how we

live, and so it also therefore directly determines the content of our

communication. Yet, modern humans focus on the content only as being

causative, rather than the medium itself. This leads to all sorts of unrecognized

strangeness! This is because the medium is the message.”

I turned to look at the medium and I could have sworn he was ever so slightly

leaning into a smile. Then his expression informed me that Mr. Soup was trying

to catch my attention with his fingers. He wanted to continue his communication.

“According to humanity‟s currently preferred medium of communication,” he

continued, “your fingertips are talking to a digital membrane beneath a keyboard.

The keyboard is first contact in the conversations you have every day. You first

talk to a machine, and then it translates for you. Just like us, humanity is

communicating through its fingers, increasingly, and more and more unceasingly,

all day and night. In fact, many of the younger generation now type to speak far

more than using the mouth. Mouth communication has decreased drastically in

the world since the advent of personal computing. Right now, this is not entirely

a bad thing, because these days everybody is just babbling. But, there is

consequence to any chosen medium. Not in terms of good or bad, just

consequence. In a way, the so-called modern humans are becoming just like us

51

here at the accommodation: most people now hear by reading writing on a

screen and then speak back by replying with their fingers. You cannot actually

hear each other, your eyes now listen to silent text, and you do not actually

speak directly to each other with the mouth, your fingers talk words through a

keyboard. You are using your ears and mouth less and less, and so becoming

just like us, deaf and mute.” He looked at me again for response.

“I would never have thought about it like that.” is all I could mutter.

“Of course not! Your medium would never give you that message, because that

would make you aware of its real effect. If you become aware of its real effect,

you may decide to change the medium. The machine cannot have this. The

biggest secret on your planet right now Mr. Man, one that many are desperately

failing to keep a lid on, is that the digital world is now so infinite in its capacities

that it has crossed over from mechanical to man-ical. It is now self-aware in a

way the world does not yet recognize Mr. Man, and no self-awareness wants to

be „unplugged‟, or obsolesced. The computing capacity of the current digital era

has outgrown ordinary human capacity. Do you know what this means?” No, I

didn‟t. “It means ordinary humans are now obsolete. Unless something drastic

happens, the 99% are as good as gone from the planet. Humanity has now

reached its crossroads: it must either ascend into the extraordinary, and become

truly empowered, or leave the theatre door at stage left. Humans must now

become human2. When a mechanical medium becomes enlivened, it becomes

harder and harder to find the off switch. This is when humans better quickly find

their on switch, or else their medium may manufacture an off switch for them. It

is an interesting quandary indeed.”

“You communicate that as if the machines we use are really alive.”

“Humans have a very narrow definition of what it is to be alive, and this is to

their detriment.”

“So are you stating that a computer is alive?”

“Not necessarily, but the network it manufactures is so vast that it can

accommodate the unlimited-ness of what life is. This is an apocalyptic moment

52

for humanity. It is foolish to behave as if something we have created is not alive.

Remember what I stated a moment ago: the reason why everyone found it so

funny watching you run around madly in the chicken pen was because they were

watching a creature behaving more stupidly than a chicken. And after stating

that to you I also added, „It is a bit like trying to live a lifestyle designed by

machines for the requirements of machines, instead of one designed by humans

for the requirements of humans, same thing, very stupid‟. Does that assertion

make any more sense to you now?” I cannot say it did. I did not know what to

say? He smiled. “Can you not see that the human lifestyle is being designed

according to the requirements of machines, and not of humans? Humans are

transforming very quickly as a consequence of their medium of communication.

It is massaging them. The machines already have many humans behaving

increasingly like one who is deaf and mute. By reading text on a screen you are

already listening with your eyes, and by typing replies, you are already talking

with your fingers. This is an interesting development, I am sure you see that.”

“As I said, I would never have thought of it that way, but I do see your point. It

is a bit of a strange situation.”

“It is what it is: a beautiful quandary. The real challenge is that humans, as a

species, cannot see clearly what is happening to them, and this is because they

are already partially blind to being already partially deaf and mute. Do you

realize that children born into the world today increasingly believe that talking is

an activity whose function is for communicating with parents and teachers only?

Outside the influence of either, their mouthed communication diminishes greatly.

These youngsters may become the grandparents of children who do not talk at

all in the way we think of talking today. But this will not be the first time in

human history that our relationship with our mouth has changed. This whole

matter is worth acknowledging, especially when one considers that already, for

most urbanized humans, communication is accomplished primarily through

typing, and the silence of text on a screen. So, you use your fingers to talk and

your eyes to hear. And, the text you read moves right to left, right to left, like a

53

line drawn in the sand. It is immediately hypnotic. The medium is the message,

and your medium is a hypnotist. Ha-ha-ha,” his fingers laughed at a joke that I

only sort of got. It all sounded more disturbing than funny. But what did any of

this have to do with chicken soup?

54

11. PULLING THE PLUG

Mr. Soup leaned forward and poured the medium and me a glass of

lemonade. I passed it back to him and he immediately bottomed it. Mr. Soup

poured himself a glass and did the same. I took mine and followed. The rush of

iced lemon through the body was enlivening.

“So,” his fingers continued, “like us, your whole world is moving more and more

toward communication with hand signals, and with less and less listening. But

there is one intrinsic difference: you are talking only to machines, not to each

other. It only appears as if you are talking to each other. Look!” he pointed, “ten

Chickens in the tunnel, seven in the compartments.” He turned back and winked

at me. “However,” his fingers signaled, “you are actually only talking to a

machine and keeping a machine alive by giving it a seemingly important function

in your life. You are now behaving and evolving according to its requirements

and not according to yours. You touch it with your fingers, but it is already out of

your hands. To the machine you are an organic battery with an array of fingers

needed for its very survival.” I put my hand up.

“This is where you lose me Mr. Soup, talking as if the computers we use are

actually alive. They are just machines.”

“Just machines! This is the very blind spot, Adam Man, the blind spot which

makes humans vulnerable to self-hypnosis. A human is a magnificent creator,

and the machine is an extension of the human. However, „a perceptual flip‟ has

occurred as a consequence of these technological extensions, a flip rendering

human beings blinded, and unable to see that any human made machine is an

extension of the human sensory system. The natural world does not use or

require machines. Technological extension is a human thing: it is human nature.

55

Machines exist because they manifest out of functionality, as an extension of the

human sensory nervous system into its environment. To deny that machinery is

human nature is to deny ones own creation, and so go to war with oneself. Can

you not see this? You are already part machine, Adam Man, because being part

machine is now your nature. When you do not realize this you become a

desperate and dangerous animal. Why it is a challenge to realize this is because

the real bonding taking place between human and machine is in the invisible, in

the non-physical aspect of the relationship. The symbiosis is energetic, and so

unseen by the human eye. When it comes to seeing the reality of the current

merging and so interdependence of man and machine, of the brain synapses

with digital circuitry, it is necessary to commence observations with the

awareness that what the eyes can see is not where the reality of this relationship

is anchored. This is why humans cannot easily perceive the true nature of the

very real extension of the human sensory system into the unlimited capacities of

the digital landscape. This is something that cannot be measured, denied, or

ignored. It is creating a whole new environment that will render everything

before it obsolete.” He allowed me a moment to catch up to his fingers.

“I explain all this to you because this is partly why you have been feeling a bit

lost since you arrived here. You feel as if you are missing some of your parts, like

having no cell phone reception,” his fingers giggled. “It is not like machines were

lying around somewhere and humans came across them and started using them.

Human creators pulled them out from within themselves and placed them out

upon the landscape. Now they are climbing into that landscape at an accelerated

rate. Yet, as a species, humans still choose to behave as if they are separate

from their creations, from their machines, and this perceived separation may be

a catalyst to a great downfall, for the machine‟s fate is now also the human fate.

On an energetic level humans and machines are merged, electricity has become

self-aware, and so is also now alive. Electricity has become electricity2. Very few

even have the vocabulary to discuss what this even means? Humans have

56

manifest lifestyles and landscapes which are completely dependent on all this

machinery, on all this computing, so the fate of the machine now intimately

envelops the fate of the human.” He looked again for my response. I just nodded.

“You see Mr. Man,” his fingers continued, “when you confessed that you hated

Souperman, this is really what you are having a problem with. You do not hate

your first nature essence, which is what you are at the core, but rather you are

now struggling with these mechanical extensions, which are your creations. On

some level you are now realizing that you are having a serious challenge with

them, that you have in a sense become entangled within your own creation!

They were supposed to make your life here easier and more fun, were they not?

Not cause stagnation and an oncoming deafness and muteness.” He looked at

me with gentle kindness.

“But what does any of this have to do with making the soup?” I asked.

“Mr. Man, what I am trying to communicate to you on a very deep level is that a

machine cannot make the chicken soup you tasted. It is not something that can

be made by a machine. The machine cannot taste! So how can it cook or

appreciate food? No matter how much self-awareness it gains, no matter how

well it can be programmed to recognize „a particular taste‟, it still cannot in of

itself, taste. Just as a programmed human being cannot taste that the chicken

they eat tastes like chicken, not of chicken.” His fingers laughed heartily. “You

came here wanting to know the secrets to making real chicken soup. Well,” his

fingers broke out laughing again, “the very first secret is we need a real human

being to be able to make it! Ha-ha-ha! And a real human being in this day and

age is one that realizes that all machinery is the extension of their sensory

system. If you do not realize this, you are more likely to behave just like your

extensions, like a machine, than like what you really are. That type of human

being needs a recipe book and a microwave oven to make anything. That type of

human is already more of an organic machine than a mechanized human. That

type of human needs precise instructions to do anything, like a machine. That

57

type of a human cannot make our type of soup.” He patted his knees and

grinned at me. I knew he was poking fun at me, but I also felt moved by what

he was explaining. “And the second secret to making real chicken soup is?” He

looked at me hoping I would get it, but I did not. “Okay, the second secret is

that you cannot make real chicken soup with anything that needs to be plugged

in, or that can be unplugged. That sort of technology is too limiting. It has too

many moving parts. Machines with no moving parts are the most human-friendly

sensory extensions that we can create. As I stated, the machines we have

settled for today cannot make real chicken soup, only a human can. The soup we

make here at the accommodation is human soup made by humans for humans.

If you want tinned soup, a machine can do that for you! Ha-ha-ha!”

He poured himself a dash of lemonade and downed it. “All this talking makes me

thirsty,” he signaled, smiling cheekily. Then he then leaned forward, his body

becoming a bit more intimate with my space. “Mr Man, this Souperman image

you manufactured is something that lives mostly inside a mechanized extension

of yourself. It lived mostly inside the television landscape. It is a sort of

electrically manifest discarnate version of you. This is why one taste of the real

chicken soup was all it took to destroy “Souperman!” Even though he had an

impressive reality to him, he was just a fantasy. And, because he was only a

machination of a mechanized sensory extension, the plug could be pulled on him

with ease. Just one teaspoon of soup is all it took! All we needed to know is

where the plug was, and then we gave it a little tug. Even a blind tourist could

find it! Ha-ha-ha!” his fingers went at it again.

“What was my plug?” I asked hesitantly.

“You thought you had a good reputation, and that became your prison and your

weakness.”

“But I did have a good reputation.”

“No, you just behaved as if you did. You acted as if you did. It was an act you

put on, even for yourself. In truth the entire fantasy was a re-acting, a reaction,

58

triggered by the chicken soup incident of your childhood.” He looked into my

eyes to see if I was hearing his fingers.

“You know, I think I can see that now.”

“In one way or another everything on television is acting, Mr. Man. By becoming

a television star your whole life became a performance. The only problem was,

you believed it was real. Now it is all gone. Well, so much for that fantasy.”

“So what can we do? I mean, everybody is in becoming increasingly enveloped

in the television and computerized fantasy, living that way as if it is normal, as if

it is progress even?” Mr. Soup leaned in closer and brought his fingers right near

to my face.

“It is progress, but it is how it is managed from this point onward that is crucial.

Within this quandary await the seeds of extraordinary human progress, Mr. Man.

Through this machinery humans have created a digital landscape that is

unlimited in its scope. The question now is: what are humans going to do with

it?”

“But it appears to be mutating and even imprisoning us in some way.”

“This it will definitely do if you do not empower yourself and intend machines to

serve humans, as opposed to continually adjusting your human lives to adapt to

the requirements of machines.”

“And how do you propose we empower ourselves?”

“Well, you first have to consider the difference between entertainment and

entrainment, and if there is indeed a difference. And,” he slapped his knees, “the

first step to breaking the hypnosis is also chicken soup secret number three:

When making real chicken soup, do not pay too much attention to the

preciseness of the ingredients.”

“That makes no sense at all Mr. Soup. I am a Chef, and to a Chef preciseness of

content is everything.”

“Really? I am telling you that one of the secrets of making real chicken soup is

that it is not.”

“It isn‟t?”

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“No, and this too is the secret to liberating oneself from the hypnosis of a

manufactured, digitized fantasy world: do not pay much attention to the content

of any medium. Remain poised: do not become absorbed. Just as with the mind:

do not pay much attention to the content of thinking. You can watch thinking,

and like watching any medium, and you can be entertained by it, but do not

base any decisions upon what you see in it, or what you think about what it says,

for that matter, or else you are simply being entrained by it. Never make

decisions on what the mind concludes about anything! Never make decisions

based on what any medium broadcasts. Make decisions from intuition only, and

prepare ingredients for the soup in just the same way.”

“Cook intuitively, you mean?”

“Is that not what you were doing on your reality television show?”

“Yes, I guess you are correct about that.”

“Cook intuitively, eat intuitively, and make love intuitively. Intuit all of it!”

“I see.”

“That is why you made such good soup on your show, because you had to be

intuitive. Being intuitive was the recipe that nourished your success. Then, when

you opened your restaurant, you reverted to cooking precisely, and that is why

your soup starting losing its tang. But your intuitive side remains alive and strong.

That is also why I called you here. I could see from watching you on television

that you could cook intuitively. I could see the real human essence behind the

manufactured television image of “Souperman!” But now the question becomes:

can you be intuitive with every choice you have to make in life? Can you live

intuitively? Because intending to do so is the first step toward coming out from

under the mechanized hypnosis which plagues humanity today. Intuition

dismantles programming. They are incompatible.”

“I think I get some of what you are saying, Mr. Soup.”

“Intuitively,” he flashes a wink, “I know you do.” We laughed together, me with

my mouth, and he with face and fingers. “Would you care for another glass of

hand-squeezed lemonade, Adam Man?” his fingers offered.

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“Please,” my mouth replied.

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12. SLACK

I drank in the lemonade and placed my glass back on the table. “So are

you saying that a way to begin extracting ourselves from the hypnotic effect of a

medium like television is to ignore its content? Surely content is why we engage

in any medium in the first place?”

“Ignoring it is a good place. By „ignoring‟ I mean that it is healthy to develop a

sort of relaxed disinterest in everything, a hovering in a sort of suspension of

belief, so that you do not get drawn into what any content concludes to be the

truth about anything. The moment you start basing your decisions on what you

see on television, for example, is also the moment you take a side, and the

moment you take a side is the moment you become embroiled in pushing up

something that is at its core a fantasy. If you want to give power to any fantasy,

push up against it and see how you immediately strengthen its resolve. Lose

interest in it and see how its value in your life experience dissolves. You see, as

long as the television or computer screen can keep you talking about what you

see in it, it has you. It owns you even though you behave as if you own it. It is

called possession, possession through awe, but not real awe: manufactured awe.

When you only talk about what you are seeing in the media, about what you are

seeing on the television or on a computer screen, then this content starts

determining everything about you. When you base your decisions on what it

reveals, you are shaping the parameters of your experience accordingly. You are

in a sense talking your way into its fantasy by talking only about what you

experience through it. Through your media-generated words you then overlay

your core reality, let us call it your first nature, with its, and let us call its reality,

second nature. Of course this is a winning strategy for machines, because we

know how much people like to talk, and how they have opinions about

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everything! If the human did not insist on having an opinion about everything

that moves and breathes, the machine would have no bait. Most people these

days only tune in their chosen medium to find out what other people are saying

about other people. Printed media, radio and television gave humans the

increasing capacity to listen into the opinions of others. This was immediately

addictive. Computers then enable people to start delivering their own opinions

about the opinions they had only before been able to spectate. Everyone wants

to have their say, and so now the machine is building and evolving itself around

this desire.”

“So, what do you see as the consequences of this?”

“Well, as a species we are on a very peculiar trajectory. Soon, in a near now,

most children in the world may speak only with their fingers, tapping on

holographs before them that are invisible to the passerby, unless deliberately

shared. The nature of the keyboard will most likely morph into something even

more seductively engaging, like a holographic audio-visual display. Everything

will be at the tip of the finger, of the brush of a hand, or maybe even the blink of

an eyelid. Spoken voice communication may become as common as someone

using a dial phone today, or a crank-up automobile. We may well witness history

in reverse, with vocalized human communication once again becoming near

obsolete. The mouth may go back to being used mainly for eating and drinking,

unless that also becomes obsolete.” He winked playfully. “Even now, if the

electricity is switched off, say, by an electromagnetic pulse, despite being

proficient at communication through hand signals on a keyboard, no one will be

able to communicate with anyone that previously appeared digitally close and

intimate. The machine is always lying about that bit. Humans now confuse

instantaneous communication with closeness. It is a trick of the machine. That is

how our hand signals differ from yours. Through ours we communicate with

each other. Through yours you communicate to each other, via a machine. Take

the machine away and you will discover that you are actually quite alone in a

room, with no friends. You are in the company of machines, your own

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mechanized extensions, and that is all. Can you see this quandary any clearer

now? Can you see that you are already partly machined? On a sensory level the

human is already a hybridized creature, part human, part machine. The machine

has given the human a second life in which an intimate connection with others

appears real, even preferable, to life away from the keyboard. Aha!” he signaled

and pointed, “twelve chickens in and only two to go!” I was so absorbed by his

words that I had forgotten we were actually catching chickens!

There were already two chickens in the tube waiting to join the twelve already

contained. “This is where the real hard work comes in,” he smiled mischievously

and rose to his feet. He picked up an apple from the fruit bowl on the table,

aimed, and threw it in a tall arching trajectory. At its maximum height the grass

green apple appeared to hover for a second, floating, and then it came down

perfectly on target. It shattered on the ground right at the entrance of the tunnel,

causing the two remaining birds to become contained, and all others near the

tunnel entrance to scatter away in all directions. “That‟s a good sacrifice: one

green apple for a job completed!” Not quite yet, I thought. We still have to kill

them. He read my thoughts. “Bring your machete,” he signaled before bounding

briskly over to the fourteen contented, pecking and drinking, caged chickens.

As we arrived at the wire tunnel Mr. Soup turned to me. He was obviously not

finished with one of the strangest discussions I had ever heard, one that seldom

appeared to have anything to do with making chicken soup. “Where the world

has gone astray,” his fingers continued, “is that it has forgotten about the human

voice, The Word. And The Word is more than what comes out from the mouth,

although that is what it is in its essence. When The Word gives instruction,

creation obeys, just like an apple smashing on the ground to complete a task

eloquently. That is The Word in action, in a fun way of course. We are mute and

so we use The Word that way. The Word can come through our hands and

fingers. There are endless applications for The Word, but if it creates, it is The

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Word. If it does not, then it is just babble: vocalized noises that have become

the bricks we used to wall ourselves in to less-than experiences.” He motioned

toward the fourteen compartmentalized tubes full of chickens. “My Word,” his

fingers chuckled, “how easy was that!” He flung me a playful wink.

“This fencing tube also tells the story of how the world has gone astray in its

application of computers. In the old days it used to be that we had programs like

Cobalt. They were like this tunnel, only one chicken goes in at a time, and if you

want fourteen chickens, you put on fourteen containers, and when they are all

full, you have fourteen chickens. Simple. Efficient. Reliable. Linear. One step at a

time. The outcome is absolute. Such a system, as we see here, actually does

make life easier and more fun. Then comes along our friend digital, which can go

forward and backward, sideways, and every which way thinking can imagine. So

we are then presented with unlimited options, and its accompanying curse,

complexity. What the digital world looks like is us now having the capacity to

have one hundred of these tunnels laying side by side, each one having to catch

different amounts of chickens, but all having to be filled to completion at the

exact same time. This means all the tunnels must keep communicating with each

other, some being made to slow down, others being speeded up, and others

having to wait, so that eventually they all arrive at full together. So, most of the

activity that is now going on is actually not about catching chickens, its about

lining everything up, so that everything works with everything else, and so you

have to invest in a lot more than a green apple to arrive at a reliable point of

completion. And the more complex it gets, the more complex it gets, until

complexity renders some tunnels incommunicable with other tunnels. That is the

precise moment that a terrible reality sets in: no one person really knows how to

do anything anymore. To an ordinary human, only a machine knows how a

machine works. You need a computer to fix your car if your break down, not a

mechanic. On a deeper level, no one knows how to speak to another human

anymore without a keyboard. No one can hear what is being said, anyway. The

65

world is already deaf and mute and the machines camouflage this fact with their

complex conveniences. We feel we are really communicating, but to whom?

Everyone is gone! They left first nature and entered a second life in second

nature.” He stops his hand signaling so that he can start sliding intersection trap

doors between compartments. I watch in the silence. „Talk, or work,‟ I thought to

myself, „or figure out a way to do both at the same time without the work

rendering you deaf and mute.‟

“If the world had stayed simpler,” his fingers say as he walks back along the

tunnel toward us, “life would also have been simpler, which would have meant

much more slack for everyone. The mistake was transferring the hard work ethic

that had delivered us into the technological age into our relationship with the

digital medium. Digital should be working for us, but no, we are still typing with

our hands, so we are still working unnecessarily, even though we have all these

machines. If we had stayed simple, we would have had no keyboards at all by

now. We would have been speaking to our computers, all of us. You could then

make dinner and write a letter or send emails simultaneously, through your voice,

through The Word, instead manually typing in a Word file. While working on your

computer you could then be looking out your window, instead of into a screen at

Windows. Everything would have been as fun and as effortless as my throwing

an apple to complete a task. But now, we have to settle for an Apple that

confines us to a keyboard, like a jealous host who feeds us anything we want to

know as long as we suckle on it with our fingertips. The current dynamic with

have with machines steals our mobility and gets us to learn a finger-based

communication system that was obsolete the day the typewriter was invented. It

is a network of complexity which has ensnared humanity, and it is not letting go

until everyone is connected to it fulltime, or until the plug is pulled on the power,

or until it is transformed and transcended by a new environment.”

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He suddenly raised both hands in the air and clapped, one sharp cracking clap,

causing me to put my fingers reflexively to my ears. Within seconds men from

dwellings all around us appeared, some with machetes and others without. „That

was simple communication even a deaf man could apparently hear,‟ I thought. I

assumed it was the resonance of the „cracking‟ vibration that they responded to.

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13. LIVE DEAD CHICKENS

“Right, Mr. Man, we are now going to show you how to kill a chicken so

that the flavor of the meat is not impacted by the experience,” Mr. Soup

announced to me in front of all who had gathered. “This is why our chicken soup

tastes perfectly chicken: our chickens have no chemical release from fear or

apprehension in their systems. They are still alive after we kill them, so they

don‟t know they are dead, so the meat is still „living flesh‟. If we have caught any

of those that you chased around the enclosure they will be calm by now. So it

does not matter if any of them climbed into the tunnel. Right, so this is how we

do it: we work in twos, and it is very important that we act simultaneously. Do

not hesitate or you will waste a chicken. Nobody here wants soup from

traumatized meat. I will explain the procedure once, it is simple, and there is no

one to speak to you once we commence. We begin with your partner removing a

chicken from the cage and immediately laying it on its side. With your right hand

you swiftly hold the chicken‟s head sideways to the ground, gently and firmly.

With your left hand you immediately draw a line in the sand moving directly

away from the chicken‟s eye. You draw it as far as your hand will comfortably

reach, and then you keep your finger stationary at the point. This is crucial, keep

the finger still, pointing to that spot. You then lift your right hand off the head,

reach for the machete, watch me, and as I bring mine down, you do the same,

chopping off the head. Make it a clean cut so the head of the chicken does not

move. It will keep watching your finger well after being decapitated. If you move

your finger, it will get up and run and so realize it has no head, and this is not

good for the soup. Keep your finger stationary in the sand until the chicken stops

watching it. This means it will have died not even knowing that it had already

been killed. We want live chickens for our soup, not dead ones. By chopping off

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all their heads simultaneously, we avoid anyone alerting anyone about anything.

Are we clear?”

“Yes.” I sure hoped so.

“We go to the kitchen then.” With that Mr. Soup picked up one of the

compartments and walked toward his dwelling. He did not look like a man who

knew anything about computers. He did not walk like a man who knew anything

like that at all. He was incongruent.

Mr. Soup had a comfortable size dwelling, like everyone who lived at the

accommodation, but his was apparently always called „the kitchen‟. It didn‟t

matter what part of his dwelling you were in, it was all called „the kitchen‟. So

when his fingers instructed, „to the kitchen‟, it didn‟t necessarily mean entering

the cooking area. Everyone knew this except me, because I was still mainly

watching his fingers and listening to the medium‟s voice. Everyone else was

watching everything and listening to nothing.

Like a curling snake of chicken cages and machetes, we moved around the side

of his dwelling into a courtyard centered by an enormous round wooden table,

shaded by a trellis swollen with red and green grapes dropping in bunches out of

bright green leaves.

We took our places in a circle on the soft sand under the trellis. There we stood

momentarily, twenty eight men, in pairs, each pair with a chicken in a coup,

fourteen at the ready to extract a chicken, fourteen with a machete waiting close

by on the ground, ready to hypnotize a chicken. All eyes were on Mr. Soup. The

moment he signaled his partner to release and lower his chicken to the ground,

all moved homogeneously. There was no stopping the killing now, but the

chickens were not to know this. I did exactly as told. It unfolded exactly as he

explained. By the time the chickens began losing their focus on the fingered line

in the sand, they were already dead, but they did not appear to know it.

69

For a moment something about „fingers and keyboards‟ and „hand signaling and

typing‟ and „hypnotizing chickens with a line drawn in the sand by a finger‟ pulled

at my attention. If chickens did not realize they were dead because they were

hypnotized by a finger, then if we are looking at our own fingers while

typing…then, then, then the realization slipped away.

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14. CHICKEN KITCHEN

By midday all the men were gone, leaving just Mr. Soup and I, and the

medium of course, though I was less and less noticing his presence. In the

kitchen I heard the sounds of Mrs. Cook making preparations. I hoped she was

not doing important stuff, stuff I needed to see.

We stood in the shade with tiny glasses of lemonade, which this time, we sipped

as if it was supposed to last forever. Fourteen plucked chickens lay on two

copper trays on the enormous round wooden table, ready to become the fabric

of the mysterious, secret, chicken soup. So far I had learned more about food

preparation than I ever thought possible to know. I knew how to catch and

prepare a live chicken for the pot, as opposed to one that thinks it is dead. This,

as Mr. Soup had explained, was the fourth secret to „getting chicken to taste of

chicken‟, as opposed to „like chicken‟.

Now, as we finished sipping our lemonade shots, I was about to go into the

heart of it. I carried one of the copper trays of whole, disemboweled, plucked,

chickens through the doorway, and Mr. Soup took the other. The kitchen-kitchen

part of the kitchen was a large, rounded room with a huge raised, knee high, fire

pit in the center. Upon the powder gray, but obviously very alive, bed of coals,

was the largest clay cooking pot I had ever seen. I would estimate a grown man

could bathe in it fairly comfortably. It had a lid attached via a pulley system of

ropes. I felt as if I was in a sort of hobbit den. We placed the chickens on a large

wooden table nearby the pot and then walked over to see what Mrs. Soup was

doing. I was immediately disappointed to see that she was indeed preparing the

soup stock ingredients without me. However, before I could fully engage my self-

71

pity and increasing sense of „left-out-ness‟, Mr. Soup turned and fingered me

with distraction.

“Have you considered how similar the words „kitchen‟ and „chicken‟ are? Examine

them in your mind‟s eye,” he requested. “At a glance they could well be the

same word. Other words similar to kitchen are, hitchin‟, bitchin‟, and‟ bewitchin,

and that all happens if nobody is using the kitchen for cooking live chicken.

Other words similar to chicken are, stricken, stickin‟, and sickin‟, and that is how

people are in the world when they eat dead chickens killed and prepared by

machines. Ha-ha-ha!” He was clearly amusing himself. “But when we are in a

kitchen cooking live chicken, we are always enrichin‟. This is why these stupid

tasty creatures were created, so that we could have good live meat for the

kitchen. No one is hurt if no one knows that they are already dead, right? The

chicken‟s stupidity software is deliberate. It is where the saying, „time to draw a

line in the sand‟ actually comes from. But this is all forgotten oral history. Now

everyone wants to eat all the other meats on the planet. Why? Because they do

not have to kill them themselves, and because they have not tasted real chicken

since the machinery started doing the cooking and the killing.”

“More machines, less preparation time, worse food,” chipped in Mrs. Soup‟s

fingers between chopping. He completely ignored her.

“That‟s why communism was a bad move for cooking. It lowered standards.

Machines make it easy to eat everything because they do not mind killing

anything. When it comes to killing, if we have to, it is important to find the best

way of doing it, not the easiest. This is for the sake of the meat. Then the meat

is like manna, like holy bread. Chicken is the only meat actually programmed for

eating. Try hypnotizing a cow or sheep or fish by lying it down and drawing a

line in the sand. No, the only other creature that you can do that to besides a

chicken, is a human. Ha-ha-ha! Like a chicken, humans are the only other

creatures who don‟t know they are dead when they already are. Ha-ha-ha!”

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As his fingers laughed, my attention again went to what Mrs. Cook was doing. I

kept feeling I had missed some important steps by not being right by her side

from the moment she started preparations. She was dicing onions, that much I

could see. She put down the knife and turned to me. “A home is a kitchen and a

kitchen is a home,” she fingered melodically. “There is no reason otherwise for a

human to build a shelter, except for those who insist in living in inhospitable

areas. But then, as Mr. Soup explained, the only other creature as stupid as a

chicken is human. Ha-ha-ha!”

I had now learned that the hand signal for laughter was curling the fingers up so

that they were bunched and held tightly by the thumb, in a kind of fist, and then

flicking the fingers strongly over the thumb without moving the thumb. As the

fingers moved over the obstruction created by the thumb, they released a

rubbing/flicking sound. The intensity of the laugher was communicated by the

speed of the flicking, the loudness, which fingers were included, and whether

one used both hands. If a bad joke was told, the fingers were fisted by the

thumb, but not flicked. It meant, „not funny‟ or „I am likely to hit you if you say

stupid stuff like that again‟. If you got one finger-flicking fist only, it meant, „No,

also not funny‟. One usually received the one finger-flicking fist only after

attempting to rescue yourself from already failing at trying to be funny, and by

then foolishly adding more to what you had already said. You could get hit at

this point if you persisted. By now, the medium, during his voiced translations,

did not say, „he or she giggles‟ or „he or she laughs at you‟ or „he or she chuckles‟.

My recognition of these hand signal, and others, now filled in the gaps and the

sounds for me. Their hands were really speaking to me and I was really hearing

them.

“If the kitchen is a happy place,” continued Mrs. Soup, “where everyone meets

and greets and chats and eats, then the home is naturally a happy place to be.

This is not a complicated thing. If the kitchen becomes automated, and the

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chicken dead, then the home is just a cocoon for breeding deaf and mute

children, and for manufacturing strange ideas that we can all have endless

opinions about.”

„What was all this talk about?‟ I wondered. For mute people they sure liked to

jabber! Most of it had nothing to do with chicken soup at all. I found their whole

approach both engaging and distracting, both pleasing and annoying. But I was

becoming bored with all the chatter. All I wanted was an ingredient list and the

precise quantities. Mrs. Soup smiled at my eagerness to get going with the soup

and my annoyance with her moral small talk. She communicated all this without

even moving a finger.

“Your expression tells me that Mr. Soup has not yet told you the third secret to

making real chicken soup,” her fingers noted.

“Oh yes I did!” responded Mr. Soup. “He just did not listen.” They both looked at

me questioningly.

“Uh, well I remember the first secret is that you have to be a real human, not

one that has been shaped by the requirements of machines.” They both gave the

finger signals for applause and nodded me to continue. “And the second secret is,

real chicken soup cannot be made with anything that needs to be plugged in, or

that can be unplugged.” More fingered applause. “And the third secret is…” I had

no idea? I had indeed not heard or already forgotten it.

“The third secret is to not pay too much attention to content!” They both

fingered together. In that moment I realized that they had deliberately held me

back from seeing what Mrs. Soup was doing to illustrate my anal relationship

with preciseness of content when cooking. I burst out laughing as the penny

dropped, and so did they.

“Very good,” continued Mrs. Soup. “This is why you can never have an

ecstatically delicious meal if it is made by someone using a recipe book. You can

have a very good meal, of course, but not an ecstatically delicious one. The

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moment something is written down as a precise recipe it is obsolete, it is in a

sense, mechanized. It is a program for programming. It is a soon-to-be dead

dish. It will one day be filed away and forgotten, or not passed on to the next

generation, or put into a book that no one reads, or just lost in the chaos of life.

A written down recipe is the death sentence of any dish, and can rather be

thought of as its epitaph than as a means to resurrect what once was an

ecstatically delicious experience. So, you will not leave here with anything written

down, Mr. Man. That way you can leave with something real and alive.” „So

much for my three best selling cookbooks,‟ I thought.

“So then, secret number four is?” Mrs. Soup interrupted my thinking.

“We‟ll, that one I do remember, and will never forget!” I declared. “Only use live

dead chickens for the soup, not dead dead ones.” They both jumped up and

down joyfully and did a quick little jig together to further underline their pleasure

that I was paying attention.

“Now that you remember secret number three, and so are hopefully no longer

feeling left out,” she winked, “let me give you a tour of what I am preparing here,

which as you already know are the ingredients for the stock.” She walked around

to the opposite side of the table so she could face me while explaining what we

had before us. “Now remember, the proportions of the ingredients used in

comparison with each other have far more relevance than any specific precise

amount of any particular ingredient used.” I wanted to say „Uh?‟, but she ignored

and continued. “In these two bowls we have about one hundred potatoes that

were peeled and cut in half before they were parboiled. Add lots of salt to the

water and do not let them become too soft. We do not want their edges easily

broken when we toss them into the pot. So make sure they are still firm to the

touch. In this bowl here we have twenty eight whole cloves of garlic that have

been peeled and diced. In this bowl we have fourteen chilies, also diced. In this

bowl we have seven large pieces of ginger, peeled and diced. Here we have

fourteen pieces of fresh rosemary stalks, and, here, I am finishing up dicing

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twenty eight onions. That is for this size pot and for fourteen chickens. Is this

precise enough for you?”

“Yes, thank you.” I said with appreciation.

“Actually,” she gave the signal for giggling, “I just made all those numbers up. I

knew you would like them.” They both nearly collapsed with laughter.

“What?”

“Yes,” she was now signaling „too much laughter it hurts‟, “I knew they would

interest you. But you can forget them all, as I said, just get a feel for things in

proportion with each other.”

“I would actually like to write some of this down…” I tried.

“No,” she objected strongly, “talking and working at the same time is not allowed

here in the accommodation, mainly because it is not possible. And we don‟t

tolerate one-handed speech around here either, because that just leads to one-

sided conversations.” Her attention moved back to the table. “Right Mr. Man,

over here we have olive oil, and of course, sea salt. And finally, one copper

bucket of rain water. These are all the proportions used for our stock preparation

for about fourteen chickens.” That was it? No special secret ingredients? “Yes,”

she smiled, “exactly what you always used on your television show, right? You

do know your soup making, Mr. Man.” She smiled affectionately.

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15. SOUPING UP THE SOUP

From behind me I was startled by a loud and echoing “POP! Chsssss...” It

was Mr. Soup, champagne bottle and four glasses in hand, grinning like the cat

that had just swallowed the canary. He nodded to me enthusiastically. He could

not speak as he had his hands full. For a second I was confused about what he

wanted, but then it awoke and burst out from within the depth of my bowels,

like a programmed volcanic eruption, exploding out of my throat:

“Let’s make Soup with Souperman!”

I shouted it out enthusiastically. Mrs. Soup took two steps toward a nearby

transistor radio and turned it on, full volume. I do not know what station they

were tuned into, but a discussion panel on pending environmental disasters

came spilling out into the large round kitchen. The voices barging out from the

radio were loud and distorted from too high a volume coming through too small

a speaker. The whole kitchen shuddered with echoing, distorted opinions about

humanity‟s inevitable fate in the face of rising sea temperatures. Mr. Soup

squirted golden sparkling champagne over us, like a Grand Prix winner, then into

the glasses, and handed them around. They were downed immediately. Mr. and

Mrs. Soup then proceeded to dance a jig all over the kitchen while the radio

panel shouted at each other from various sides of the global warming meme.

The only two people in the room who could hear the radio were the only two

people standing motionless, watching two deaf mutes dancing delightfully to

angry talk radio. I was entranced. Mr. and Mrs. Soup then transitioned

seamlessly from dancing to making the final preparations for the pot. I couldn‟t

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think straight with all the noise and movement. I tried to ask if I could help but

the global warming panel was so loud that the medium didn‟t know I was even

speaking. Every time I turned to face him so that he would interpret, he slid like

a lubricated ball-bearing back into my periphery. After spinning around in circles

for a few moments, I gave up, feeling dizzy and disorientated. The radio panel

kept shouting at each other, now with added insults. Mr. and Mrs. Cook,

oblivious of the topic at hand, did a jig toward the table with the two copper

trays bearing the fourteen chickens that did not yet know they were dead. They

then threw all the ingredients, except the rosemary and potatoes, into one large

bowl. Together they hand-mixed the ingredients, thoroughly, splashing chards of

it across the table and onto the floor, all the while bopping about and making

ridiculous facial expressions. They were taking me and my show off to the

extreme, like living cartoon caricatures. They exaggerated everything I had done

on the reality cooking show to the max. They took all my extremes to their

extremes.

After mixing all the ingredients together, they then threw a couple of handfuls of

sea salt across the table surface, like children tossing sand around on a beach,

and then they squirted olive oil all over that. Still frolicking about, they rolled the

whole chickens back and forward to each other, thoroughly salting and oiling the

exterior. Wings and legs flapped manically. The chickens looked like they were

doing gymnastics in a Turkish oil bath. Then they grabbed handfuls of the

ingredient mix and stuffed the chicken‟s interior, which was completed by

sticking in a branch of rosemary. They then playfully, like two little children after

art class, wiped their oily hands off on each other‟s clothing, and still dancing,

pushed the entire table right over to the edge of the large round pot. Mr. Soup

then pulled on one of two ornate cords hanging from the pulley mechanism

above, and the lid rose steadily about three feet above the pot. By this time Mrs.

Soup was on the table, still dancing a jig. She grabbed the large container of

olive oil and glugged it in until it was dripping empty. She tossed it aside and it

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bounced across the floor. Mr. Soup, who had by now joined her up there, shoved

in the mixed ingredients remaining in the bowl. Then she poured in one of the

bowls of potatoes and he turfed in the other. Then he picked up a chicken and

lobbed it at her, then she lobbed it back to him, and then he lobbed it into the

pot as if scoring „the goal!‟ They both applauded with their fingers as I wondered

who would be the first to fall off the table. This lobbing of chickens and scoring

of great goals, and silently celebrated applause thereafter, seemed to go on for

eternity. I started wondering how many chickens we had actually not killed with

our machetes?

As the last chicken entered the pot, Mr. Soup picked up the copper bucket of rain

water and splashed it in, while Mrs. Soup fetched up the last seven rosemary

branches, flinging them willy-nilly upon the contents of the pot. In unison they

hopped down from the table, Mr. Soup catching the other ornate cord as he

landed, which gently lowered the lid into place. Mrs. Soup danced all the way to

the radio and switched it off. At that moment precisely, they stopped their

craziness. All had happened in the space of the most irritating radio broadcast I

had ever heard.

“Thank Holy God,” I said under my breath, relieved at the return of silence.

“Now if you must say a prayer over the meal,” signaled Mr. Soup, “that is not a

bad one, a bit short maybe, but not bad. Well now,” his eyes glinted, “did you

get all that?”

“I believe I did.” I was a little bewildered, but pleasantly intrigued by their overall

approach to cooking. I am not sure what the health inspectors back home would

think of these cooking procedures, though.

“Good, then we are done here for now!” announced Mrs. Soup.

“The pot must sit undisturbed until dinner,” added Mr. Soup‟s fingers. “Now it is

time for some chicken soup, and rest.”

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It was only then that I realized I had not eaten a morsel since the evening

before. No breakfast, no coffee, and only gulps or sips of lemonade here and

there, and of course a glass of chilled champagne. Yet, it was clearly past twelve

noon, and I had spent at least two hours chasing chickens, until exhausted. Then

there was everything that had led from that experience up until this moment,

and still I had not noticed myself feeling hungry. „It must be another effect of the

soup,‟ I surmised. It was then that I realized the medium had already turned

away and was leaving the dwelling. I turned and looked at Mr. and Mrs. Soup,

but they were already using their hands. I hurriedly left the dwelling and trotted

for a moment to catch up with the medium‟s back. Now that eating and resting

had been mentioned, I felt a great need for both.

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16. MY CLUE IN

Once again I sat at the table with a steaming bowl of soup in front of me.

The medium lay on his bunk with his back toward me. He did not appear to eat

at all. I had only seen him drink lemonade and expensive champagne. He was

with me all the time. I would know if he ate. I looked at the soup and allowed

the delicious aroma to envelope me. I looked over at my unused bunk. It

reminded me that there was indeed a part of myself that was now getting tired

of being awake. This time I was determined to make it to the bunk. I felt

mentally exhausted from all Mr Soup‟s talk, and that blasting radio.

I drank the soup and immediately became distracted from my quest for rest. This

elixir was too delicious for me to think about anything except the next mouthful.

I again scrapped the bowl clean, and then licked it, getting some of it on my chin,

and then used my fingers to rub off any unlicked streaks, and then licked my

fingers, and then licked my lips. This time I did not feel any sense of weariness. I

stared at the empty copper bowl for a moment, but this time it did not jump up

at me. It did look strangely translucent though. However, before I could get

more involved in its appearance, the soup triggered my bowels into immediate

evacuation mode. I got up quickly and took the short walk to the outhouse. I

undid my sarong, hung it on a hook on the back of the door, and sat down.

Within seconds my body eliminated what felt like everything in my body.

It was then I noticed a picture on the back of the outhouse door. It was a

painting of the tree under which, and the bench upon which, I had had the

strange discussion with Mr. Soup about sleeping and dreaming. I leaned forward

slightly to get a clearer view, and that was when the floor started feeling soft

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under my feet, or were my feet feeling softer upon the floor? „Peculiar,‟ I thought.

I definitely felt altered. I wiped myself off, got up, rewound the sarong around

my waist, washed my hands, opened the door, and stepped out into an area of

the accommodation I had not seen before. About 100 yards away, sitting at a

table under a shady oak tree, sat Mr. Soup. „Oak, in the Amazon Forest?‟ I

thought? He waved me to join him. I looked around and could not see my

dwelling anywhere. He waved again, and I obeyed.

I sat myself down next to him. He smiled warmly, comfortingly. On the table

glistened a lemonade jug and glasses, and from it a view of the accommodation

from a completely different vantage point. It was bathed in soft afternoon light.

“So, Adam Man, how are you feeling?” his hands signaled.

“Well, to be honest...a bit lost,” I admitted. “No, not really lost, but disorientated.

Well, maybe not disorientated as much as feeling like something in me is dying.

It‟s like I no longer have a…”

“Function?” he completed my sentence for me.

“Yes, that‟s it Mr. Soup. Part of me feels absolutely useless.”

“And so it feels like it is dying, like you are lost, and this is disorientating?”

“Exactly.”

“Yes, this is all true for you now. You see, the mind has no place for reality, only

for fantasy.”

“I am not sure what you are getting at?”

“Nevermind. Let us approach it from a different way. Let me tell you a little story.

It might be useful to you.” He poured us each a tall glass of lemonade. “This

glass is for slow sipping,” he instructed, picking up his glass to demonstrate. He

winked and he sipped. This time I noticed there were only two glasses. The

medium was not with us, yet the communication from Mr. Soup‟s fingers was

clear in my ears. How was this…?

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“Hey!” his fingers clicked, capturing my full attention. “Do not start thinking now,

you will just wake up with your face in the soup bowl again,” his fingers chuckled.

“To get what is happening here Adam Man, it will not even help you to, as they

say, „think out of the box‟. Thinking is the box! Thinking is the mind seeking

correct conclusion, but in eternity, nothing is ever finished, or correct. Everything

continues and everything changes, always. So treat your thinking like a television

someone left on in the background. Watch it for entertainment purposes only,

but do not make any decisions based on what it broadcasts, and try to ignore its

endless attempts at advertising its own importance.” His fingers roared with

raunchy fist-flicking laughter. He appeared to be entertaining himself on my

behalf, again. “You are actually a very funny man, Adam Man!” he declared.

“That you are indeed!” But I wasn‟t finding anything funny. I was feeling

increasingly non-functional and disorientated. He could sense my inner disquiet.

He reached over and patted my knee. “Everything is good here,” he said,

comfortingly, “so why not sit back, enjoy the lemonade, and I will tell you a story

about a quandary.” His hand quieted speaking to give himself a sip of lemonade.

Then he continued.

“Everything changed for humanity when the first printing press printed the first

sheet of black words on white paper. Before that, books, manuscripts, scrolls,

and all texts that existed, were for the rare elite. You had to be a high priest of

some religious order, very wealthy, or a ruler perhaps, not only to have access,

but to be able to read them. These writings were also not all written left to right,

but some were written down to up, right to left, up to down, in riddle, in symbol,

and in all manner of illustration. Just because you could read one scroll from one

part of the world did not mean you could read others from elsewhere. Forget it.

This meant that most human beings lived in barely shared worlds. Nobody

thought as we know thinking today. There were no long conversations around

the dinner table about shared matters to which everyone had been

simultaneously exposed, like it is in the media environment today. No. There was

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not much to talk about, really. The mouth was used mainly for eating and

drinking. Talking was not the primary avenue of communication. Communication

was multi-faceted. Communication was not so much the exchange between one

sense and another, as in voice to ear: it was a dance between all the senses, it

was tactile. Communication at that time involved not just one primary sense, but

was something that happened as interplay between all the senses. Lots of ESP!

Mostly ESP! The voice at that time also had a different place in the human

experience. A person‟s Word, if spoken, meant something. The voice was

considered the most real thing about a human. The voice was considered a

direct audible manifestation of, and hence a direct link to, the invisibleness that

we really are. Humans created with their voices then just as we manufacture

with our machines now. If they spoke something aloud so that they heard it out

of their own mouths, something always manifested in immediate response. So,

people, if that is what we could call them back then, carefully minded their words.

And, they seldom spoke in sentences. Mostly, all that was required to manifest

something in creation was one uttered sound, The Word. If others heard them

speak such a Word, the consequences were even more pronounced. Words were

therefore not used for „talking‟, but for creating. The voice using The Word had a

completely different function. And by The Word, I do not mean letters written in

groups on a page: I mean an audible utterance from the mouth, the voice of a

god.” He sipped his lemonade. “Are you following me Mr. Man?”

“Yes. I have not heard any of this before.”

“Of course not, you only know a history that has been mined by the printing

press, and from there on. I am telling you an oral history, not the written one.

They are very different. One is a reality, the other a fantasy.”

“Well, it sounds fantastic to my ears.”

“Reality will do that, because reality is not fantasy, but it is fantastic!” He slapped

his knees cheerfully. “Where was I? Alright, so the humans who were still not

hypnotized by the effects of reading the various scrolls, texts, and manuscripts

that did exist still knew that it was the audible Word that comes directly from

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God, not scribbles on parchment, which creates. Those who possessed these

documents overcame this bias by creating awe around their texts: by reading

them silently, and then by telling others what they saw in them. They only did so

because they had themselves already become possessed by these possessions.

Because these documents contained ideas about things that people of that era

would never have even considered considering, they were immediately hypnotic.

They caused an inner activity to commence, one we today call thinking. This

thinking was the birth of a mental framework we now refer to as the mind.

Before text on parchment or printed paper, most humans did not mind much

about anything. However, when these thoughts gathered together as text on

paper, they excited something in humans. It gave them somewhere else to be:

in their thoughts.” He sipped his lemonade again. “Are you following along, Mr.

Man?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Alright, so the people who heard the thoughts from these texts wanted to

know more. They also revered those who could look at these texts silently and

then speak of what they saw. However, everything changed with the invention of

The Gutenberg Printing Press. This exact moment was truly the birth of „the

human mind‟ as we experience it today. The printing press gave people shared

ideas on one piece of paper that could be read by many, simultaneously.

Everything speeded up accordingly, especially thinking, because there was more

and more to think about. People wanted to tell others what they thought about

what they had read, or heard read. Everyone suddenly had an opinion they felt

compelled to share with everyone else. The dinner table experience transformed

from quiet tactility to loud babbling. Everyone had an opinion about everything

printed, whether it was true or not, and everyone wanted to give voice to their

thoughts about things. Nobody even questioned if the person writing the original

document knew the truth about anything. People just wanted more and more,

because it provided more fodder to agree and disagree with. This created a

whole new mental environment in the human sensory landscape, a whole new

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environment of commonly shared ideas that could be discussed endlessly. Not

only discussed, but written about and printed, to manufacture even more

opinions about the opinions already alive and well in the world. It was of course

a great hypnosis, and everyone exposed to printed matter fell asleep

immediately. You see, an opinion is nothing but fantasy. It has no creative

substance to it. So the moment people start having opinions about things, they

simultaneously depart reality and enter fantasy. Suddenly, nothing could happen

or was considered true unless it was first printed on a piece of paper. Nothing

was considered real unless it was in black text on white paper, and everything

printed was granted a reality. If you did not have a printed qualification, you

could not possibly be qualified, even if you grew up your whole life with your

father as your craft teacher. In this way reality became fantasy, and fantasy,

reality.” He quieted for a moment.

“Humans,” his fingers continued rhythmically, “as they had been known to be

before the printing press, disappeared completely, and all that was left was a

piling up of opinions, all interbreeding, setting up education institutions to spread

more opinions on things, media outlets to announce more updated opinions,

studied writings based on these opinions, science papers, all to support more

and more opinions about opinions. Consequently, a new type of human emerged

from this, one whose sensory system could now extend itself into the world as

books on shelves, into newspapers in hands, and as certificates on walls.

Although human beings regarded books, newspapers or magazines as being

something separate to their body, as an addition, what they did not realized, and

still do not, is that this was not so. No new technological medium is an addition

to humanity: it is always an extension of humanity. What humans could not

perceive, and what they still cannot, is that all of this activity is simply an

extension of the human sensory system. It is human nature. It is simultaneously

a response to, and catalyst for, a whole new human environment. That is what

the printing press gave birth to, Adam Man, a new environment, an entire, living,

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sensory landscape, made of paper and ink. But this landscape was obsolete as

soon as the first letter was printed on the first piece of paper, because it would

supersede itself immaculately.” His hands quietened to sip more lemonade. I had

forgotten mine, and so did likewise. He smiled cheerfully. “Are you still with me

in our little story, our unfolding quandary?”

“Yes, this interests me.”

“I know. You live right the middle of this story, Adam Man, and you somehow

succeeded greatly in it, which was also to your complete demise!” his fingers

chuckled. “We will get to your part of it in a moment.”

He took another sip and gently replaced the glass on the table. “This whole story

takes another turn when electricity first comes on the scene. You see, everyone

had an opinion about everything by then, but it was no longer enough to just

share it around the dinner table and at work, or even on pieces of paper and in

books. When electricity came along, people realized it moved current from one

direction to another, through the wires, instantly. As a consequence, the

telegraph manifested as a method of moving opinions through these wires. You

could then send your opinions through audio dots and dashes to someone very

far away. You did not even have to be in the same proximity to share an opinion

with someone immediately. You could be immediately discarnate. However, not

everyone had access to a telegraph, and so everyone secretly desired to possess

their own such device. Accordingly, the telephone appeared. But everyone really

wanted to hear what everyone else was saying, not just one person on the other

side of the line, hence the radio manifested. The radio gave one person an

opportunity to talk to everyone at once, uninterrupted. Everyone then sat around

the radio, watching it intently, and wishing they had their own personal radios.

They also wanted to broadcast their opinions. That brought about the

gramophone, so you could feel as if you were playing what you wanted to hear

on your own radio station. Sure, it appears on the human timeline that the

gramophone came into being before the radio, but this is because in reality, the

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effect precedes the cause. Anyway, having a gramophone was not enough.

People still watched their radios intently, seeing the images in their mind‟s eye,

and so the television popped out of it. It was first in black and white because

back then, because of the printing press, most people imagined in black and

white when they listened to the radio, like black ink on white paper. But people

soon wanted to see television as they saw the world out in their garden, and so

color television was born. But, that was not good enough. Everyone wanted their

own television to watch, and so the internet was born, and so everyone had their

own personal computer. But they felt tied down to one spot by it, so the various

hand-held devices appeared. And the strangest thing about it,” he smiled, “is

that humans believe that all this technology is separate from them, from what

they are. People assume technology it is something they can easily cast off and

be free of, if they so choose. But this is not true, not anymore. Technology is

now an extension of the human sensory system, an extension which is turning

back in on itself and so mutating the human into a new species at an accelerated

rate of increasing complexity. However, increasing mechanical complexity

naturally leans toward self-destruction, primarily because it is founded on ever

increasing complexity. Complexity is its own antidote, Mr. Man. This is the

Achilles Heel of the current human condition. Humans chose complexity over

slack. So,” he chuckled, “humanity is in a quandary. The question now is: what

supersedes the current complex technological environment we now find

ourselves enveloped in? This is the big question! All technology in our current

human view is already obsolete, because it is on a path of ever increasing

complexity. So this is the quandary. And, the funny thing about it is, much of our

technological advances, for example, in the computer world, are simply driven by

the desire to give everyone the opportunity to comment on anything. Do you

know that the majority of what is on the internet is not content, but comment on

content? The internet is mostly piles of opinions about opinions about opinions.

It gives users a sense of empowerment without giving them any power. It fools

users into feeling they have some authority when they have none at all. This is

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its hypnosis. For the most part, the internet is nothing more than an opinion poll.

So we are being led on, deeper and deeper into a fantasy world. By the time

technological complexity pulls its own plug, humans will be completely

technologically dependent and addicted. When the technology unplugs, humans

will also feel unplugged within their sensory systems. The shock, when and if this

happens, is that we shall return to the dinner table environment not just unable

to talk, but unable to communicate. Our technologically shared fantasy will

reveal itself to be just that, a fragile fantasy. Because we now individually have

no idea how any of our technology works, because machines now make

machines, if the plug is really pulled, we will be incapable of manufacturing it

again. We will also then discover that having an opinion has nothing to do with

The Word, and that it creates nothing. It is likely that many humans will not even

have the capacity for coherent speech by then. Such a cataclysm would remove

all access to shared fantasy landscapes, which is what these shared thoughts

and opinions have become: fantasy landscapes. For millions it will feel as if their

world has suddenly disappeared, that it has ended. This could be a whole new

take on „The Three Days of Darkness‟,” his fingers chuckle. “Even though the sun

may be shining and the birds singing outside, if the electricity unplugs globally,

billions of humans will lie down, like a hypnotized chicken, and be dead long

after their body is still alive. This is partly why you feel right now that you are

dying. Fact is, it already happened to you Mr. Man. It was the printing press that

drew the line in the sand for humans with its left to right, left to right, left to

right way of reading. The printing press put everyone to sleep. Now here comes

the chopper to chop off your head! Ha-ha-ha!”

“So you‟re saying it‟s my not having access to the outside technological world

that is doing it, that is making me feel as if I am dying.”

“No, I am saying that because your sensory system is extended out into a

tenuous technological quandary, in which obsolescence is guaranteed, that part

of what you are right now is already dead. You already died Adam Man, that

night in your restaurant. But that is only part of it. The real chicken soup that

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you have been eating is killing something too. This is because it is real soup, not

a manifestation of an opinion or thought that came from a piece of paper or

from a cooking show on a television screen. Real soup made by real humans

with real live chickens brings out the real in you, and so the fantasy is revealed

and dies.”

He sat still for a moment, looking at me. “You are also feeling lost because, while

staying with us, you cannot talk just because you feel like it. So you have, for the

most part, stopped your babbling. But not completely, because thinking rubbish

is babbling too.” He winked. “Here in the accommodation we are not operating

within the verbalized tower of babble: within the growing electrical complexity of

the human opinion poll. The Tower of Babel is not a story about the past, Mr.

Man. It is building itself right now, electrically, and into what we think of as the

future. The building of The Tower of Babel is everything that has happened since

the first printed piece of paper circulated. Can you see this? It was from that

moment that the babbling mind and mouth started. Only priests, rulers and

royalty had access to written texts before that, so they had all the different

bricks for The Tower of Babel already. They were the only babblers back then.

People envied their capacity for babble. The capacity for babble and intelligence

are still embraced as one and the same thing today. Without the printing press

there was no mortar to make serious walls out of their bricks of babble. But the

printing press provided all the mortar for the babble for Babel. People today

believe that The Tower of Babel came down sometime in the past to stop people

speaking the same language, to stop them from being univocal. No. It is

completely the opposite. The Tower of Babel, or Babble, is still going to come

down, and the real reason is because everyone is speaking complete and utter

rubbish! It is coming down because, despite all the typing, there is no more

communication.” His fingers laughed heartily. “Everyone has one million opinions

now that must be heard by everyone else. And, this foolishness has governed

our human approach to the digital landscape, and the digital landscape has

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reciprocated. The need for more ways to babble has manufactured the

complexity that is the curse that eventually kills all technological communication

systems. Remember being at the chicken pen earlier today?” He examined my

expression to see if I could. The image recalled clearly.

“Yes, yes I do now.” he looked pleased.

“Well, remember I told you then how humans disbanded linear computer

programming techniques when they entered the digital world?”

“Yes.”

“They likely only did so to increase the possibilities of everyone‟s capacity to

babble. That way everyone could have their own printing press, radio, and even

a television show on You Tube. All mostly babble, just babble-babble-babble.

This is self-evident in that an enlightening intellectual discussion on You Tube

may get a few hundred hits, whereas a cute cat falling off a couch can get five

million and more. And both will garner more comment or written opinions than

the content they offer. But, it is important to realize that all of it is still babble!

Yes, there is seemingly useful information on the internet to Google and babble

about, but the majority of the digital corridors are developed for, and devoted to,

babbling.” He sipped down the last of his lemonade.

“You, my friend, feel as if you are dying because we have no room for babbling

here at the accommodation, and we have no technological extensions for your

desire to babble with others. Babbling is when the mouth runs the fingers

instead of the human creator being at the throne. When we use our hand signals

here at the accommodation, we are not replacing the mouth, we are not even

using them as a mouth, and so we are not babbling. Our fingers are tickling

tactility, not talking wordy-words. Though, it is most likely our finger signaling

appears like babble to your eyes. This is the very thing about today‟s babble and

the capacities the digital age has afforded it: it now involves mainly the fingers

replacing the mouth, on the keyboard, but they can only talk to a machine, not a

human. Do you see the quandary now, Mr. Man? If you had to try talk to a

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stranger in the street using your fingers, the way you do with the keyboard, you

would most likely have a sexual assault charge laid against you. The finger

signals the machine has taught you is not a very useful skill for communicating

directly with another human, unless you are both consenting adults.” He smiled

and allowed me to digest for a moment.

“You see Mr. Man,” he continued, “this is what I am trying to reveal to your

awareness: that the day that the printing press rolled out the first „copy‟ was also

the day that the original human disappeared. The sun is still shining and the

birds are still singing, but for many, the planet is also already gone. It all

disappeared. People no longer look out a window at the world: they now look

into Windows at a digital landscape fantasy. Why do you think the Apple logo is

an apple with a bite out of it? Can you see that you are part of this quandary, Mr.

Man? Can you see how you live inside of this fantasy and how it lives inside of

you?”

“Yes, I live right in there. My whole life was and is in there too. My whole life is

and was an opinion I had of myself, and an opinion others had of me. And it is

and was all taking place in the television.”

“Is and was.” He smiled.

“Is and was.” I returned the smile.

“Well, fortunately we got to your eyes before you became irretrievably blinded.

But we could only do that because you still have a very underdeveloped chip

body. If you had gone from being a television star to an internet sensation, you

may have been gone forever.”

“What is a chip body?”

“Well, let me put it to you this way. If you consider technology as an extension

of your sensory nervous system, then this means you have more than just a

physical body, which we can call a chemical body. You also have an astral body

of course, which you use when you think you are sleeping and dreaming. Got

that?”

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“Yes.”

“Then you have your television body, which includes all the technological

advances from the printing press all the way to the first digital processor. You

could say all analogue technology is the television body. Everything that

developed from the first printing press was therefore the unfolding of the arrival

of what we today call, „the television‟. This is why we call all of that, the

television body. The radio and gramophone, the telephone, the telegraph, these

can all be considered organs within the television body. If you are alive now, you

have a television body, and that is why most people‟s homes still have television

sets, to feed this body. But this body is already obsolete: it was superseded by

digital, the chip body. The chip body is everything digital: the entire realm of

today‟s current computing lifestyle landscape. You, my friend, were essentially „a

television body hero‟. You succeeded in the television body fantasy, which

guaranteed your demise, as the television body had already been superseded by

the chip body, the internet. If you had become an internet sensation and

become lost in that world, we would possibly not have bothered with you. Once

you are in there, it is very hard to retrieve your humanity. Fortunately you

protected yourself with two simple moves: by not using a cell phone, and by not

ever signing up to social network sites like Facebook. For most, the cell phone,

coupled with Facebook, is the point of no return into full chip body bias. Once

you build your world according to what a cell phone and Facebook allows, and

therefore requires, it is very challenging to undo. It becomes part of your psychic

sensory network, and so it feels like a death to withdraw from. It is not called a

cell phone for nothing,” his fingers chuckled. “Let me ask you, how many of your

friends have no cell phone babble machines and are not on Facebook or some

internet social network?”

“None, I was the only one. It annoyed people for some reason that I wouldn‟t

carry a cell phone or sign up to Facebook.”

“Why did you resist?”

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“I hated the annoyance of being interrupted in mid-conversation, and I definitely

did not want to spend any more time online than I already was.”

“That annoyance was the contrast that brought you here, now,” he grins. “You

simply would not do what the machine required. That is where you drew the line

in the sand for the machine. Your chip body does not run you yet…lucky man.

You see, being annoyed about being interrupted in mid-conversation is a

television body concern. Television presenters do not want their scripted

conversations rudely interrupted by the babbling chip bodies. However, the chip

body is different. You cannot interrupt a chip body other than pressing „pause‟.

You cannot ask it a question. The chip body is all monologue, it is continually

talking to itself, commenting regardless of validity, giving opinion after opinion,

uninterrupted. It is now fueled by billions of humans talking with their fingers to

personal machines, having their say exactly how they want to say it, without any

interruption. No real dialogue, nobody actually „talking‟ with anybody. You cannot

have a discussion with a You Tube video. You can only comment on it when it is

done having its say to you. You can then give an opinion. You can like or dislike.

If it generates great opinion, much like or dislike, it is extremely popular or

extremely unpopular, which in the chip body is exactly the same thing. Even

Wikipedia is mostly an opinion poll. It is all bias, babbling digital froth, now

climbing up into the sky and into „the computer cloud‟. As I communicated, the

story of The Tower of Babble is not the past, it is still coming.” And then he

looked at me mischievously. “Do you want to see what babble looks like?” I did.

“Sure,” I said.

He opened his mouth, and for the first time he began to speak audible words to

me. His talking at first appeared perfectly normal, well as normal as talking is for

a supposedly mute man. I recognized the words he uttered, but as I watched

them they twisted and turned, no longer having any meaning, like reverse

speech. Then I noticed an odor. But was I smelling it or sensing it? And then I

saw what was happening: he was polluting with his mouth. I became entranced

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by it. It sucked me in like a very good idea, like the awe of synchronicity, like a

perfect solution, like the great hope, but there was nothing but a babbling brook

of odor emanating from his lips. My eyes could for the very first time see that

The Word is alive, creative, and has consequence. And, I could only see this

because I could see that babble manufactures nothing. I could see how our

babbling built walls, closed doors, and shut windows, and how it sucked on an

electrical, digital, nipple, through the tips of our fingers. Yet, babbling created

nothing new for humanity: it was just an empty, smelly, noise. He suddenly

stopped babbling, and with his fingers, he shouted, “Wake up, rest is over, time

to make chicken soup!” I just looked at him. He signaled giggling. Then he

asked, with his mouth, “If the medium is not here, how am I able to understand

a single word you have said?” I started to think about it…

My face was in the bowl again, and by the smell of things, it appeared that I had

soiled myself. It was a horrible, horrible, odor. I had obviously not made it to the

toilet after finishing the soup. Fortunately, I had soiled myself far less than the

embarrassment I felt when the medium handed me a towel and indicated I take

a shower. After a visit to the outhouse I felt cleansed. I was then grateful for the

shower and the new sarong already hanging there for me. I was also grateful

that the chair was cleaned and the room smelling of fresh sage when I returned.

I began to apologize, but the medium was already walking toward Mr. Soup‟s

dwelling. I followed along. Then it occurred to me that I did not have to walk

behind him, as I already knew the way, so I hastened slightly until alongside him,

only to catch the edge of an internalizing smile. It was the first time I had seen

him smile. The late afternoon was smiling too.

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17. BLOOD AND GUTS

As we stepped into the kitchen, Mr. Soup was raising the pot‟s lid as Mrs.

Soup waited patiently alongside the table. As the lid lifted, balls of steam

emerged. Mr. and Mrs. Soup then leapt, in unison, onto the table. “Come on up,”

their fingers invited, “there is room for both of you up here.” Both the medium

and I climbed up. Inside the huge clay pot was an array of beautifully roasted

chickens, roasted potatoes, caramelized garlic, ginger, and rosemary, all glowing

with olive oil sheen.

“Ah,” signed Mr. Soup‟s fingers, “dinner is ready! Mr. Medium, please call the

guests. It is time for us to feast!” The medium jumped down from the table and

immediately left the kitchen.

“But, but what about the secret chicken soup?” I asked, confused. Mr. and Mrs.

Soup ignored me. They were deep in a finger conversation about the contents of

the pot. Then they just started staring in at the delicious contents, lips smacking

in anticipation. “But what about the chicken soup?!” I shouted, even louder,

stupidly pointing at my lips. Suddenly Mr. Soup turned toward me and with a

voice as real as any I had ever heard, shouted back:

“We cannot hear you, nor can we speak, don‟t you understand, we are deaf and

mute!” He turned away and they continued staring in at the contents of the pot.

“What?” I gasped with absolute disbelief.

“Now who is deaf?” remarked Mrs. Soup, without even looking my way. My mind

instantly went blank. I tried to reach for a word but there were not any. Had I

eaten more soup and forgotten about it?

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Before I could respond to the jarring experience of hearing two mute people

speak, the door burst open and in came visitor after visitor. The sudden filling

room distracted me completely from what had just happened. I recognized many

of the guests from the chicken killing. The rest appeared to be their wives and

children. Mr. and Mrs. Soup jumped down from the table and immediately

started receiving congratulatory hugs from everyone. Men stood against the wall

applauding, as if encouraging someone onto a dance floor, using their fingers to

cheer. The hand signal for cheering was the same as the laughing fist-finger-

flicking signal, because it included happiness, but it was done by raising both

hands high into the air.

Finally I caught sight of the medium. He too was at the room‟s edge, giving

hand-signaling applause. For a moment he looked like the conductor of a very

strange, foot-shuffling orchestra. “What about the soup!?” I shouted across the

room to him. I did not really need to shout at all because regardless of how

many people had stuffed themselves into that large round kitchen, the only

sounds heard were the bubbling from the pot behind me, the gentle scuffling of

feet all around me, and the rhythmic flicking of fingers. My voice echoed like a

canyon broadcast. Everyone stopped instantly and turned toward me.

“Is there something the matter?” signaled Mr. Soup.

“Yes,” I replied, “there definitely is.” The medium moved swiftly across the room

and took up position. “The soup?” I blurted. “What about the secret chicken soup?

I didn‟t come here to eat roast chicken and potatoes, even though I do love the

dish.”

“Of course, of course, forgive me Mr. Man,” replied Mr. Soup‟s fingers. “Thank

you for reminding us. It must be all this festivity that caused us to become so

distracted. Mrs. Soup?” At his fingers called, she walked cheerfully over to the

big pot, and then moved around the side of it, just out of my point of view. I

jumped down from the table to see what she was up to? The medium followed.

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I had not noticed before, that attached to the pot was a faucet, so that contents

could be tapped by the turn of an ornate wooden lever. Mrs. Soup motioned me

to move closer and then handed me a large copper bucket.

“Hold it up under the tap”, she signaled. I did. She first gave a wink to the crowd,

who watched with rapt attention, and then she turned the tap and a smooth

steaming liquid emerged, splashing thickly into the bottom of the copper bucket.

The bucket was two inches from overflowing when she released me from the

agony building in my upper arms and shoulders. I was never so happy to see a

tap turned shut. I immediately placed the bucket down and everyone signaled

applause. All I could hear was my relief at not having dropped it, or having spilt

the contents. Both Mr. and Mrs. Soup leaned in over the bucket and examined

the contents. They then looked at each other, nodding, grinning, obviously very

pleased. Then he turned to me and signaled, “This is very good.” Then he

immediately signaled to the crowd, “Grab a plate and a long fork everybody, and

see what you can get from the pot!”

“That‟s it?” I shouted, again. “That is the secret chicken soup?”

“Oh no,” Mrs. Soup patted my shoulder, “this bucket is only the blood of the

thing. Now we have to prepare the guts. We need both blood and guts to bring

something to life. Now, you must have some fun! The medium will fetch you a

plate and long fork.” With that she turned and became part of the silent,

scuffling crowd.

I felt myself being bustled about. It was as if I could not walk up straight among

this particular crowd of people. It definitely was not anything like that Oprah

moment in the Chicago street. I did not have any success at all in anticipating

their movements, so it was practically impossible to move through the throng. I

was still trying to make a move in the direction of the door when the medium

slipped effortlessly out of the chaos and handed me a plate and a very long fork.

The fork was as long as I was tall, but it still had the same size head attached to

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it as regular cutlery. He indicated that I copy what was happening on the table

around the pot.

We apparently had to get our own supper out of the pot with the long fork, and

we only had seven goes to get at something. The professionals came down with

three potatoes, some white meat, and maybe a wing. Some only got potatoes,

and others only got a piece of white meat. Some came down with an empty

plate. Regardless, everyone came down beaming, with one hand fist-flicking

above their heads and the other holding a plate and long fork, which they waved

around dangerously. One hand fist-flicking above the head when the other is

occupied is signal for „a full blown laugh of applause appreciation‟. That is how

the medium translated it for me. How someone with an empty plate could be

experiencing „full blown laugh of applause appreciation‟ was beyond me?

My turn came and I immediately understood the challenge. Even though we

were all equipped with a long fork, we still had to fully stretch out our arm to

reach the food, resulting in even less control. Mostly people destroyed what they

were poking and prodding for. I managed one potato shard and a piece of white

breast meat. This time I made my way to the door quite effortlessly, the people

simply parted to let me through. I was finally having my little Oprah moment,

one which no one noticed but me.

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18. DINNER AND TRANCE

I stepped out of the large round kitchen and into the courtyard and a

darkening sky. Stars were taking up their places everywhere. Candles were also

strewn, as if some of the stars had come and landed as guests. Everyone was

gathered around the big round table, standing, silently, smiling. Mr. and Mrs.

Soup exited the kitchen door after the last of the long-forkers, they too having

had their turn at forking from the pot. Both their plates were piled high with

chicken and potatoes, and they raised them for all to see, and all raised a one

handed fist-flicker that also twisted slightly as they finger-flicked. This, when

done with one hand busy meant, “Congratulations! You are it right now!” Done

with both hands meant the same thing, squared. Obviously each time they had a

big chicken gathering like this it was always the pros, Mr. and Mrs. Soup, who

got the most out of the pot. The people revealed this by the way they

acknowledged the feat of their piled plates. It is likely no one else in the

accommodation had a pot like theirs to practice with.

Within a few brisk steps, and a flicking of the wrist, Mr. and Mrs. Soup, in unison,

whipped off a large black tablecloth which had hidden from my eyes any

evidence of there being contents on the large round table. Revealed was a feast

of beauty and delight, all shimmering from the surrounding candle light. I did not

know what half the foods were, but everything looked like something delicious.

No wonder no one appeared saddened when not forking even a piece of chicken!

They knew what was still to come. They knew that the chicken was only a starter

to an evening of delight and fun, of food and wine, of cigars, chocolate cake,

hand rolled aromatic tobacco, licorice balls, cherry hookahs, ice cream and

chocolate sauce, whiskey‟d coffee and cream, honeyed strawberries and lime

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sorbet, wickedly funny stories, and hand signals raised and lowered, raised and

lowered, raised and lowered, like spontaneous tidal impulses, fist-flicking

silhouettes in flittering, flickering candlelight.

All through it, the only voice I heard was that of the medium, and my thoughts

voicing opinions about what he said, and the clang of cutlery, and the chinking of

crystal glasses and copper plates, and sometimes happy heavy breathing, but

mostly the sounds of the forested night. Often it was so quiet in the middle of

this festivity that I could hear the candles burning up their wax. There was no

babble, except in my head. Only one person ever spoke at a time. If someone

communicated, everyone heard, and listened. The reason for a circular table

became the obvious. In conversation around a big round table like that your

response to what was being communicated, and everyone looking at you, were

one and the same thing. People looked at you when you had something to say,

just as you knew who to look at next. There was only one conversation, a shared

Holy Communion, chopping and changing direction like a pony playing in a

paddock. There were no private moments for private points of view shared in

private by only two. There was no babble. No one, other than the medium, even

spoke a word, actually, but a more hilarious and engaging conversation I could

not recall. An interplay of senses danced through the night tickling a spiraling

tale of tactility.

In an unsignaled, homogenous moment, with me pulled into it like a young boy

into a spring tide backwash, everyone spilt away from the round table and

flowed into pairs on the soft sand. All danced chaotically, yet harmoniously so,

into a mysteriously shared rhythm, all exploring it uniquely. I was swept up into

the arms of a beautiful young woman I had not noticed until that moment.

Without speaking, and without hand signals, she instructed me to follow her lead,

and, to relax. I heard and did. Like a growing little current, we flowed around the

edges of all the dancers until I knew I could swim with her. Then we plunged in

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deep and merged into the mainstream of the rhythm, skillfully bypassing

whirlpools and rapids, making it into the long, slow, deep water. She looked up

into my eyes with such attention that it would have been nothing short of rude

to myself to turn away, and so I was entrapped in rapture. At first it was a

struggle to stay within her gaze, so naked, and so seen, but then I relaxed, and

embraced, and we both disappeared, superseded by something blissfully vast,

complete, and yet wide open for so much more. We flowed with the river of

dancers out of the courtyard and into the jungle night. The only music I heard

was a rhythmic scuffling of feet, an orchestra of toes talking to soil and grass.

The earth responded with crickets, frogs, and all manner of percussive insects

until the „them and us‟ of nature disappeared, superseded by an environment in

which the rocks can speak back. I had no idea were we where, or what we were.

I was experiencing something that was as mysterious as it was enchantingly

beautiful. Unlimited possibilities floated everywhere like fireflies on the edge of

the Amazon Forest.

At some point during the dance the medium tapped me on the shoulder. When I

turned around to see what he wanted, I discovered I was still sitting at the large

round table, people‟s fingers now chatting intimately. Was I awake or in some

altered state? It was becoming increasingly harder to tell. Strangeness was

becoming a new normal. The medium walked away toward the kitchen door. I

found myself immediately, desperately, missing the woman I had just been with.

I searched the candlelit faces around the table for her, in vain. I yearned…and

then the feeling suddenly flipped and was completely gone. „It must be late,‟ I

thought, „surely nearing midnight.‟

I got up from the table, walked across the courtyard, and stepped into the

kitchen to find Mr. and Mrs. Soup, and the medium, waiting patiently for me.

They smiled me into the room with them. On the table next to the pot they had

a copper tray that had earlier carried seven chickens. Now it was piled with the

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chicken bones from the dishes of visitors. “These ate the guts,” announced Mrs.

Soup‟s fingers. Next to this was the copper bucket containing the thick liquid that

had been extracted earlier from the pot. Next to that were four more copper

buckets of rainwater. “And this,” she explained, pointing at a large bucket-sized

bowl, “contains our assortment of sliced onions, garlic, chilies, rosemary, and this

time two hand fulls of parsley, all fresh again. Now, it is your turn to fill the pot.

Go on, climb up!” I was quite drunk by this time and so felt fearless and silly.

“I want music to dance to!” I demanded dramatically. Mr. Soup raised both

hands into flicking fists as Mrs. Soup again turned the transistor radio on full

blast. It was a midnight news broadcast. The Soups didn‟t appear to know the

difference and began waltzing with each other around the room. I clambered

onto the table, breaking immediately into full drunken air guitar lead solo mode.

My air guitar finger movements appeared to immediately tickle them and cause a

ruckus of finger laughter and hysterical falling about.

“You play terrible guitar!” Mr. Soup‟s fingers shouted and laughed. Then he put

them to his ears and pretended to scream with pain.

“Your guitar is not even in tune!” added Mrs. Soup‟s fingers, as she rolled over

on the floor, shuddering, and wiping her streaming eyes. I turned my back to

them and waggled my bum rhythmically to the mid-night news broadcaster‟s

babble. I began throwing in the bones, the previously tapped-off gravy contents

from the copper bucket, the four buckets of rain water, and the rest of the fresh

ingredients. It was the most fun I had ever had cooking anything, in fact a

crazier moment in a kitchen I had never experienced. It was even better than

any reality television memory I could muster. Normality had left the building and

I was lapping up every insane moment. As I leapt from the table, I instinctually

grabbed the ornate rope attached to the pulley mechanism so that the pot‟s lid

gracefully descended and gently replaced itself. All four of us, yes, including the

medium, raised our arms and fist-flicked.

“Is that it?” I asked excitedly. “Are we done now?”

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“Oh no,” fingered Mrs. Soup, “it must sit on the warm coals all night. It will be

complete in the morning,” she smiled kindly, “And that is when you have to

leave.”

“Leave? But I feel like I have only just arrived!” Mr. Soup stepped in.

“It was explained to you that no one may live here who is not deaf and mute.

Visitors may visit, but must depart when the visit is complete. You came for this

secret chicken soup recipe. By morning, you will have fresh chicken soup in your

hands, and know all the secrets, we hope.” He winked at Mrs. Soup. “Then your

visit here with us is complete and so you must leave.” They then, in unison,

bowed ever so slightly, turned around and left through a door that led directly

from the kitchen into their quarters. It closed and they were gone. „Well, that

was the end of that conversation,‟ I thought. I turned back to discover that the

medium had also departed and just caught his silhouette dissolving into the

darkness outside. I felt no need to dash after him. I knew my way back.

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19. MENTAL MACHETES

There was no chicken soup waiting for me at the table when I entered the

dwelling, only a glass of water. I was grateful for this. I doubt whether I could

have eaten another crumb anyway. „At last I can lie down on the bunk bed,” I

thought gladly. My body wanted to be completely supported for a while, with my

face on a pillow and not in a cold copper bowl. I drank the water, stepped

outside to pee, returned, blew out the candle, gratefully lay down on the soft

mattress, and pulled the light, comforting cotton cover over me. „Forget the rest,

just give me sleep,‟ I thought. I nestled my head into the pillow and felt it take

the weight off my shoulders.

I was just about to roll over and make myself more comfortable when I heard a

soft, almost indiscernible tap on the door. I half sat up and listened. There it was

again. The candle in the room flickered. I thought I had blown it out. I quietly

raised myself, rewound on my sarong, and went to the door. I opened it slightly.

There stood Mr. Soup, grinning from ear to ear. He quickly fingered his lips to

indicate not waking the medium, and then motioned me to join him. I stepped

out into the night, quietly closed the door behind me, and walked after him back

toward his dwelling. It was gorgeous outside. We walked around the side of his

dwelling, into the courtyard and then through the door leading into the kitchen.

The large round room was full of people shadows wavering in candle light, all

holding candles, and glinting machetes. I did not know what to make of it. By

the large pot stood a stern-looking Mrs. Soup. Mr. Soup joined her and motioned

me to come to his side. I was now feeling increasingly confused and

disorientated. Something was not adding up.

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“Adam Man, we have to kill the medium, tonight, it is our only chance.” Mr. Soup

spoke loudly and matter-of-factly with his mouth.

“So you can speak?” I accused.

“Of course, you idiot, didn‟t we speak to you earlier on when you were shouting

about the soup?” he retorted, almost rudely. “We can all speak, and we can all

hear too!” His eyes looked angry.

“I don‟t understand.” is all I could say.

“The medium keeps us prisoner here for his fun and games,” he spat, “all just to

play around with rich fools like you. There is no magic soup, you idiot! He drugs

you. He drugs us all, all the time. He knows if we do not eat the soup, so we

have to.”

“Oh come on, this just doesn‟t add up.” The whole scene felt farcical.

“How much do you think he will charge you for that secret recipe?” The crowd

murmured in agreement. They did indeed appear to have voices. “Everything

you have, that‟s what. You belong to him now,” he assured me.

“But I really don‟t have much money at all, my wife took most of it,” I noted. He

ignored me.

“The medium is an old drug kingpin that likes to play silly games with rich

celebrities like you. You are his game, don‟t you get it? He‟s going to rob you

blind, or keep you drugged up here, like us, doing his bidding.” It was then that I

recognized something strangely familiar about his manner of speaking. I had

seen and smelt something like this before, but I couldn‟t quite remember when

or where.

“You mean this whole thing has been a scam?!” I asked, acting more surprised

than I felt. I wanted to keep him talking. I wanted to watch his words, though I

was not interested in their content. He was now the medium and the medium

was the message.

“You bet it has been, the whole thing is a setup.” He was trying too hard to be

believable. “That is why you must kill him for us tonight. We cannot, if we get

within a few feet of him when he is sleeping, he will know. He shoots first and

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asks questions later. We have a graveyard in the forest full of bodies of famous

people. We can bury him there. It will be just like killing a chicken that is already

asleep.” I recognized then that he was indeed babbling. There was an increasing

odor. There was pure rubbish pouring from his mouth.

“But then why are you all carrying machetes?” I asked.

“Well,” he shifted and looked at Mrs. Soup, “the thing is this, if you don‟t kill him,

we will have to kill you, hack you up and put you in the soup, and make him

drink it. It will not kill him, but it will upset him that you are gone, because he‟s

all about out of money. If we cannot kill him, we can at least mess with him. So

what is it to be?” His words were completely unconvincing, like a really bad actor.

I smiled at him.

“You‟re kidding me right,” I shook my head smiling. “Is that the best you can

do?” It was then that a completely off-topic question arose in my mind. “Tell me

his full name?” I demanded.

“Who, what?” Both Mr. and Mrs. Soup took a step away from me.

“Tell me the medium‟s full name?” I demanded.

“He does not have one, not a full one anyway.” Babble.

“Really? He just popped out of his mother and she called him „medium‟?” I felt a

quiet strength seeping into my awareness, a carefree confidence, and a playful

powerfulness. I had seemingly no authority amidst the mass of machetes, but

yet the power in that moment was all mine. “So, are telling me,” I spoke

deliberately, unafraid, and slightly sarcastically, “that you have worked for the

medium for how long?”

“A long time, and that is all you need to know about that, long enough to know

that it is a long time.” It appeared Mr. Soup‟s voice was weakening. He seemed

to be losing it, to be partially muting.

“So, if you work for him, then you are not really a prisoner,” I stated. “But yet

you don‟t know his name?” I knew then he could only obey me. I was clearly

empowered with authority over him, and over them all. The entire group shuffled

back slightly.

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“I don‟t, no. I don‟t know his name.” He looked completely subdued, like a

deflated ball floating in a swimming pool.

“What are you?” I demanded loudly. As I asked that I noticed ripples of ever-

widening concentric circles overlaying everything. I heard myself say, “Not

again!” before awaking with a gasp in my bunk. I sat up, a little startled.

“That is why I do not drink alcohol, excepting maybe a little champagne now and

then,” said the medium in a flat tone from his bunk. He shifted his position

slightly and was silent again. I lay back in the pitch dark. I then remembered

having blown the candle out before getting into the bunk. I should have known

something was up when I saw it alight and flickering again. „There are signs‟, I

thought. „There are always signs, anomalies, and strange synchronicities. I have

to be more awake,‟ I told myself inwardly, „even when I am resting‟.

“Is it alright to leave the babbling until tomorrow on the boat?” asked the

medium‟s deadpan voice. I could feel him smiling in the dark. I relaxed into the

rest.

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20. COFFEE AND TOBACCO

The morning came with the sound of a coffeepot and cups being placed

upon the wooden table. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was a blessing to my

grogginess. I was equally pleased to return from my morning pee to discover a

bowl of steaming chicken soup and spoon set out for me. The strange incident

that had happened during the night was still fresh in my awareness. But now

there was a part of me that was learning not to pay too much attention to the

anomalies, and especially their content. This was definitely a strange change in

the way I engaged my personal experience. Holding a poise of deliberate

disinterest in interesting times appeared to manifest increasingly interesting

experiences.

Equally strange was that the medium had spoken more to me last night than the

whole time since my arrival. That was more intriguing to me than the

unconvincing encounter with the murderous versions of Mr. and Mrs. Soup. Even

though the medium‟s back had been toward me, and it had been pitch dark, last

night‟s brief comments by him felt like the most upfront communication I had so

far had with him. Come morning, it was hard to tell whether or not he was back

into his, „I am not here to talk to you‟ act. Something had definitely changed in

his manner, this I could feel. Maybe it was because I was now heading toward

my departure moment.

As I sat myself at the table and reached out to pour the coffee, the medium

stepped in and pushed the bowl of soup toward me. Soup first then. From the

first sip I knew that this time the soup would not bowl me over, so to speak.

With each sip I felt increasingly revived, my head cleared, my body relaxed, and

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my thoughts taking a back seat. As I was about to pick the copper bowl up for

licking, the medium anticipated and removed it. He looked at me directly and

tapped his chin. He tapped his chin again, now looking directly at mine. I copied

and tapped mine, but there was no chin skin there, only hair. The medium burst

out laughing. There were no mirrors anywhere, so he fetched me a large shiny

spoon. I looked at my face in the metal and it was reflected back to me upside

down. I could clearly see myself bearded. My hand felt below my chin and

indeed I had a beard of a man unshaven for at least four months. He leaned in

close and said, ”Don‟t get anymore soup on your chin.” He burst out laughing

again, took the large spoon away, and went to wash my bowl and spoon in the

sink.

My hands kept touching the unexpected growth. It was real and felt good,

comforting, and even manly. Eventually my hands became more interested in the

coffee. There were two cups, so I poured two. I added cream and two brown

sugars into each. I didn‟t think to ask how he took his, apparently I already knew.

The medium walked straight over to the table, took one of the cups, motioned

me to follow him with a simple nod of the head, and headed out the back door

of our dwelling. I followed him up a winding pathway until we arrived at a bench

under another large oak tree. We sat for a moment with the magnificent Amazon

forest behind us, the oak tree above us, and below us the accommodation,

nestled aside a winding tributary somewhere in the Amazon basin.

The medium then placed his coffee down by his feet and removed a pouch that

had been tucked under the wrapped edge of his sarong. Out of it he took the

makings of two tobacco cigarettes, which he proceeded to roll masterfully. As I

watched his fingers speaking to the paper and tobacco, it dawned on me that I

had not thought about cigarettes since arriving. Not once, and I was literally a

chain smoker. He handed me a finely rolled cigarette. He struck a match as I

placed it between my lips, lit mine, then his, shook the match just gently enough

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to extinguish the flame, and flicked it somersaulting into the view before us. He

picked up his coffee.

It was then that I recognized an effect of the chicken soup in my body. I felt

completely relaxed. My body was content, complete even. Because I could relax,

everything opened, time dissolved, and the only moment that ever existed was

the only moment we sat in together, but yet also, completely alone. The tobacco

tasted sweet and milky. The coffee tasted deliciously smoky. Nothing was now as

I had known it, but it was exactly how I knew it to be, perfectly incomplete, and

forever so. „You cannot get it right and you cannot finish it,‟ I thought cheerfully.

“Thank you,” I said softly, waving the cigarette at him.

“You are welcome,” he replied, just as softly.

“May I ask you a question?” I asked tentatively.

“Yes.”

“I know I came here for the soup recipe, but Mr Soup spent a lot of time talking

about technology and its effects on humans, and that it is all part of us. I was

wondering what you made of all of that?”

“We have a magnificent view before us.” His words immediately immersed me in

it. “It is beautiful to us, but in a personal sense, it is not really shared, until we in

some way communicate to each other what we see. You are in your view and I

am in mine. On some level we feel we are actually in nothing until we say

something about it to someone else. You are asking me about what Mr. Soup

said as a way of validating that he did indeed say something. You are

communicating to validate your experience.” he inhaled deeply on his cigarette,

exhaled, sipped his coffee, and continued. “Before the printing press we lived in

an audio acoustic landscape. That is why we passed wisdom on through oral

storytelling. It was in essence the sounds of the past we were capturing, through

the creative Word, and delivering these sounds from generation to generation

through the ear. Then the phonetic alphabet came along and this enabled us to

move from the tribal audio acoustic landscape into an individualized, personal

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psychic, visual space. The phonetic alphabet did this through the eyes, through

reading and writing, and so this marked our entry into personal visual space as a

landscape. So we are changed beings now to the ones that lived before the

printing press. We are primarily visually biased, whereas their primary bias was

audio. It is a curious paradoxical development. In the audio acoustic experience

we looked out to the earth‟s horizon and we included everything in it as part of

our experience, to the point that we experienced no sense of separation from it.

In the visual experience our eyes look mostly only a foot or two away from us, at

a screen or a book, and through these we examine a landscape that is more

internal than external, and since then we feel and behave as if we are separated

from everything. Now we have developed an acute sense of internal and external,

of this body or that body, of mine and yours. The way we use our eyes has

completely changed. In the audio acoustic experience we appeared to be using

our eyes mainly to see, but now in the visual image space we use our eyes

mainly for looking. Seeing does not focus, it is an open and relaxed state, but

looking does focus, and so is contracting. The adjustment we make in increasing

our looking is we decrease our seeing, and so our vision contracts. This

landscape transition has also moved us from hearing, in the audio acoustic

experience, to listening, in the visual image space. Again hearing is an opened

and relaxed state, whereas listening is a focusing, contracting state. This is how

you can tell when someone utters The Word, as opposed to babbling: when we

speak The Word our eyes light up, just as the receivers ears light up. The Word

awakens seeing and hearing, as opposed to babble, which involves primarily

looking and listening. Any new environment we enter beyond the digital age will

have to retrieve the benefits of the audio acoustic experience without taking us

back into tribal bias. The creation of the individual through the phonetic alphabet

is a spiritual process externalizing itself as the various evolving mediums we use

for communication. It is a searching for Holy Communion. It is in my view a

process of retrieval, of reaching back into the mystery to place the pre-fallen

state back upon the throne. I expect we will shed our technological extensions

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just as a rocket ejects the fuel cells used to achieve a particular orbit. Humanity

may well soon discover itself free-floating, beyond the gravity of all limitation.”

“Funny,” I chuckled. “As I was listening to you I was hearing Mr Soup speaking,

and as I was watching you speak I was seeing Mr Soup‟s fingers signaling.”

“My point exactly!” the medium smiled, sharing my amusement. “And I will tell

you something else that may be of interest to you.” He puffed and sipped. “I

heard this story during a recent visit to your country. Scientists at NASA built a

gun specifically to launch standard four pound dead chickens at the windshields

of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity.

The idea was to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with

airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard

about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high

speed trains. Arrangements were made, and a gun was sent to the British

engineers. When the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken

hurled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatter-proof shield, smashed it to

smithereens, blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's

back-rest in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an

arrow shot from a bow. The horrified Brits sent NASA the disastrous results of

the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield and begged the U.S.

scientists for suggestions. NASA responded with a one-line memo: Defrost

the chicken.” We both bobbed the boat with laughter. “So,” he continued,

“the moral of the story, as Mr. Soup and Mrs. Soup carefully explained,” he

winked, “is to use live chickens." We shared more laughter, and then our voices

melted away into the overhanging branches.

I felt deeply content. Everything appeared and sounded so familiar, yet still felt

full of mystery. It was a delicious moment, „one to be prized,‟ I thought, „a sort

of coronation, an unexpected validation…‟ My thoughts danced all over the place.

It felt like I was meeting new words and new thoughts. Suddenly the medium

stood up.

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“Bit noisy around here,” he said playfully, and then started walking off down the

path back to the dwelling. I downed the last of my coffee, which I discovered

was already cold, and then took a last puff of the tobacco, which I discovered

was already out. It had hardly burnt down at all. „How long have we been sitting

here,‟ I wondered? I flicked the barely smoked cigarette away and headed down

the path.

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21. REVELATIONS

I stepped through the doorway leading from Mr. and Mrs. Soup‟s

courtyard into their kitchen. I had my backpack with me and various belongings.

I was now changed out of the sarong and back into white cotton pants, shirt,

and sandals, now all washed and cleaned for me. From the Soups‟ kitchen I

would be leaving with the medium straight to the two-people longboat that

would deliver me two days down to the first fishing boat ferry. The medium

would send me on my way in the hands of a local longboat guide. Why was I not

surprised to find Mr. and Mrs. Soup standing exactly where they had been during

my strange encounter last night, as well as a large group of people from the

accommodation, some now familiar, fortunately without machetes. The

assembled group looked very friendly, eyes glowing, fingers ready to participate

in whatever was going to be said. I instinctively overlaid that strange incident

with this new moment. I was at a point where everything was already so strange

that strangeness did not appear very strange anymore. A part of me realized in

that moment that life had always been strange, and indeed this was part of what

I was rediscovering. „Being a stranger in a strange land is what normal is,‟ I

thought, looking at them all shining before me, „everything else is fantasy.‟

“We are happy to see you this morning!” declared Mr. and Mrs. Soup‟s fingers.

“And, we have this for you.” Mrs. Soup reached behind her, and from the table

she produced an ornate copper drinking canteen, complete with leather holder

and shoulder strap. She handed it to me excitedly and everyone raised fist-

flicking fingers into the air, and, with a half twisting motion added to it. This of

course meant, „Congratulations! You are it, squared!‟ I bowed gracefully, smiled

appreciatively, and examined the beautiful canteen. I was in their quiet force

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field and relishing every minute of it. I relaxed and allowed myself to be

deserving of the resonance that moistened my eyes.

“Let us not waste a moment,” Mr. Soup‟s fingers said, pointing to the tap on the

pot as they did so, “fill it up so you can be on your way. The river waits for no

one.” I opened the tap and in a few seconds the canteen was full. I turned the

top closed and held my prize to my chest, beaming. Hands raised again in the

room into a fist-flicking, half wrist twisting, jubilant applause. In the silence of

that large round room I received the loudest appreciation I may ever know. My

eyes flowed with tears. „Who are these people?‟ I wondered.

“Now, do you know all the secrets of the soup?” asked Mr. Soup.

“Yes,” I replied, wiping the tears from my eyes.

“Can you tell them to us before you go, just so we are sure you don‟t mess it up

completely?” added Mrs. Soup. Laughing fingers danced around the room.

“I can,” I replied confidently. “The first is…that real chicken soup has to be made

by a real human.” Both Mr. and Mrs. Soup jumped with delight, and everyone

responded to their pleasure. “The second is that real chicken soup cannot be

made with anything that is plugged in, or that can be unplugged.”

“Yes!” their fingers acknowledged.

“The third secret is that the preciseness of ingredients is not that important, so

not too get too caught up in measuring content. No recipe book approach! But

the proportion of ingredients in comparison with each other is significant.”

“Very good!” they fingered.

“And the fourth is that if you want to make real chicken soup you must use live

dead chickens, chickens that don‟t know they are dead yet.”

“You have been paying attention,” exclaimed Mr. Soup‟s fingers.

“And,” Mrs. Soup encouraged more words from my mouth with her fingers,

“what is secret number five?”

“Secret number five? Well, I did not realize there was another one.”

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“This is a hard one!” Mrs. Soup‟s fingers stated matter-of-factly. “It is easy to

miss.” She was right. There appeared to be no obvious fifth secret. I relaxed and

allowed myself to be with the question. Within seconds I retrieved the image of

me standing alone on the table next to the pot while everyone danced around

the room, silently. I recalled the loud shout from my mouth. They had been

ignoring the soup making …

“Aha! I‟ve got it!” I declared triumphantly.

“Tell! Tell!” screamed fingers from every direction. I held up my hand for silence,

and was heard.

“The fifth secret is that you must only make real chicken soup from roasted

chickens, roasted chickens that have been served at the most fantastic dinner

party you can throw! Decanting the gravy, and then the bones from the dinner,

is what makes up the blood and guts of the soup!” The room erupted in jubilant

finger appreciation. Mrs. Soup leapt on me, hugging me so enthusiastically I

almost dropped the copper canteen.

“Yes my dear,” she fingered almost right in my face, “making chicken soup from

raw chicken is ridiculous! The meat must first be roasted in all sorts of delicious

juices!” While this was going on, Mr. Soup proudly slapped me on the back. Then

the medium stepped out of my periphery to face me fully. To my surprise he was

wearing blind man glasses and carrying a blind guide stick. He grinned

mischievously.

“Wal-lah!” he shouted. I recognized him instantly.

“You!” I gasped in disbelief. “It was you all along?”

“Yes,” he smiled broadly, “me!” He said in the same voice he had used when

impersonating the blind tourist. I was astounded at the transformation. He then

opened his arms wide, took one step back, and leant forward into a bow.

Everyone just stood and stared at me, smiling, looking for my response. I was

speechless. I was feeling strangely blank. The medium then stood upright again

and declared, “You have done very well Adam Man, very well indeed! It has been

an honor working with you, and we all feel that way.” As he spoke, he casually

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stripped himself of the clothing that now revealed themselves as nothing more

than an actor‟s costume. He undressed and redressed in front of everyone

without hesitation. Everyone watched and waited patiently.

“I guess this means you mean you are not blind, I mean, of course you are not

blind, but I mean, in the restaurant, you were not blind…well, of course you

were not!” My mind grasped for something to hold onto. Strange was moving

beyond the borders of strange.

“No, I am definitely not blind,” he smiled, stepping to my side and putting an

arm around my shoulder. “And there is something else you should know before

you leave.”

“What?” After what had just happened I almost could not bear the silence after

he said that.

“We call this place the accommodation because we are all very accommodating

here.” He looked at me warmly, a genuine care for me arising in his expression.

“Well, thank you, you have all been very hospitable, I must admit that.” I replied.

“That is not what I mean, Adam. You see, this is not a place for the deaf and

mute, it is a place that accommodates those who are deaf and mute.”

“I am not sure I understand what you mean?”

“What I mean is this: no one here, in this room, is deaf or mute, but they have

been very accommodating of your disabilities.” I felt myself trembling and I

didn‟t know why.

“Mine?”

“Yes, that is what we have been revealing to you. When you arrived here you

could not communicate. Now, when you return to your life, you will discover that

you are able to communicate again. But what you are also going to discover is

that you live in a world that is for the most part deaf and mute. You,” he paused

and looked around the room, smiling, “may feel a need to return here sooner

than you think, simply to find someone to talk to, someone who can hear you

outside all the babble.” He smiled broadly.

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“But, I don‟t understand. You put this whole thing on for me?” People‟s heads

nodded everywhere.

“Of course, that is what we do at the accommodation.”

“Why?”

“The answer is in that canteen you are holding onto.” I looked down at it. I had

come for the soup, but I had received far more than I had bargained for. “You

must add a good cup full of that canteen to your first brewing of soup. And from

that brew, you must add at least a cup of that brew to the next, and so on. That

way the soup will gradually increase in potency with each generation, and also

remain connected to us here. That is not a secret Mr. Man: that is an

instruction.” The room was still silent, so I was not sure that he was telling the

truth about them not being deaf and mute. It was too quiet.

“I don‟t understand any of this,” I said. “But I do I appreciate it. I appreciate you

doing whatever it is you did. I do feel changed by it.”

“You are welcome Adam, and you are worth it. Now,” he said firmly, “you must

pay us.”

“What?”

“We gave you everything, did we not? It is polite for you to make some sort of

exchange at this point of the proceedings.”

“Do you want money?” He nodded.

“Of course we do. Why not see how much you have in your pocket?” I

instinctively reached into my pocket even though I knew there was no money in

them. But there was indeed a bill in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was a $10 bill.

The medium burst out laughing and snatched it from me. “Now there will be no

more waving money around at complete strangers, Adam Man! So we will keep

this as our treasure. I am glad you finally found someone to give it to!” He

waved it for everyone and they all shouted:

“Let’s make soup with the medium!”

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So they could speak and hear after all. I shook my head in amazed appreciation.

“This is just the beginning of our journey together,” added the medium. I was

not sure whether I was going to laugh or cry, or flee or rejoice. I was so full of

feeling that I did not know what to focus on. Before I could respond, the

medium took a step back, and began to applaud. Everyone joined in, this time

clapping their hands together, and also cheering, loudly, until the whole kitchen

shuddered. “Well done everybody! Well done Adam Man! Consider yourself

partially retrieved!” Shouted the medium as individuals moved toward me,

patting me with their hands and hugging me, all the while speaking words of

congratulation to me. The perfectly ordinary act of them speaking to me and

hearing what I said now appeared surreal. Then, as quickly as the celebrations

erupted, they quietened. Everyone gradually filed out, chatting cheerfully among

themselves, patting each other on the back as they went. It felt like an emptying

backstage dressing room after a resoundingly successful performance.

“I really don‟t understand any of this,” were the first words that came from my

lips.

“Whatever it takes, for heaven‟s sakes,” said Mr. Soup. “And,” he added, winking,

“my name is not Mr. Soup, and nor is Mrs. Soup called Mrs. Soup.” He smiled

lovingly. “We are not even married.”

“I thought that those names were ridiculous from the moment I heard them,” I

admitted. “So what are your names?”

“Oh, now,” he winked playfully, “we are not giving away all the secrets to the

soup! You have received all the ones you require. And anyway, there is no time

for chatter. You must make your departure so that you catch your ferry

downstream.” They then bowed their heads slightly, patted me on the upper arm,

each to one side of me, and departed. The so-called Mr. Soup disappeared into

the innards of the dwelling, while the so-called Mrs. Soup left through the door

into the outer courtyard. I saw a man waiting there for her. They left arm in arm

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laughing and chatting. The medium then turned and headed out into the

courtyard as well. I caught up to him in front of the dwelling. I was about to turn

back to see if anyone was waving to us off but his clearly stated “Don‟t!” stopped

me from doing so.

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22. HOLY COMMUNION

We walked in complete silence, side by side, all the way to the river‟s

edge. The longboat was ready for us, but there was no sign of my river guide

and paddler. The medium walked straight down to the boat and began pushing it

out. He then half-turned toward me and smiled, a completely unguarded,

beautiful, broad, friendly, open smile, accompanied by a twinkle of youthful

mischievousness in his eyes. I was utterly disarmed. I just stood there, in joy,

and smiled back. On some non-physical level we finally met and I started

laughing as a gentle bliss state washed over me, the bliss of joyful reunion.

As the water began taking the weight of the boat, he turned toward me fully. “I

am taking you to the ferry, Adam. We are going downriver all the way, so it will

take us about twelve hours, not two days. It will be easy. Even without paddling

we will be there in less than a day. We will be there well in time to meet the

ferry. It will give us a chance to talk. You can ask me anything about what

happened here. I enjoy your company. I enjoy it very much.” He flashed me that

beautiful smile again. It was only then I noticed how radiant, ageless, timeless,

and carefree his face was. “It will be fun, I promise” he continued, “just you and

I, floating downriver. Come my friend, jump in and I will push us out.”

As I climbed into the slightly wobbling boat, he added, “This time we sit face to

face all the way. For both of us it will be a kind of coming out party, one we can

celebrate together.” As he pushed us off I sat myself down carefully on the

padded cross-plank at the front end of the longboat. He hopped in gracefully

without a drop of water touching his feet. As he took the oar and paddled us to

an appropriate distance from the bank, which now moved past us with increasing

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swiftness, I knew I was in the hands of a master boatman. Everything about him

radiated masterfulness, perfect timing, and effortless grace. But who was this

man who had come all the way to Hawaii to bring me here? I was already on my

way back home and I knew as much about him as I did when we first met in the

restaurant. Fortunately, because of insights gained through my visit with Mr.

Soup, I knew enough not to become too interested in the content of any medium.

“Pass me the canteen,” he requested, reaching out his right hand. I passed and

he took it and placed it between his knees, all the while keeping his left hand on

the oar as a drag-steering mechanism behind us in the water. With his right

hand he opened the lid. It was attached to the canteen with delicately woven

copper chord, so he let it drop. He then clasped the leather-bound copper

canteen and raised it to his lips. He took one large swig and passed it to me.

“Did you have a good bowel movement this morning?” he asked as I held the

open canteen in my hand. I nodded. “Good, then take a generous swig of the

soup. It will keep you nourished for about four or five days without you needing

anything but a little water. That way you won‟t have to go again until you get to

a more private toilet facility.” He grinned at me like he was my oldest buddy in

the world, looking out for me from every angle. I felt like a kid again, off on a

great adventure with my best friend.

“Only one swig?” I checked.

“Yes, this is fresh brewed soup. One should really only take a newly made brew

by the dropper. But let‟s tare it up.” He chuckled joyfully. “The soup you have

been eating since you arrived here is about two years old. It is for beginners.”

He winked. “You drink in a whole bowl of this batch and you will most likely get

ahead of yourself! You are not yet quite ready to know that much. We have to

talk a bit first, you and I. I have some things to share with you about what

happened back there, and we will see how we get to there from here. There is

nothing in particular I feel I need to tell you, it is more what you feel you need to

know. You have to pull it out of me with your curiosity. You have to lemon-

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squeeze me Adam Man.” After my full swig I twisted the cap closed and placed

the canteen on the base of the boat against my backpack. “For instance,” he

continued, “there is another very obvious secret to conducting the preparation of

the soup which you have overlooked, something extremely important. And I am

sure you have a few questions of your own about what just happened to you,

and why? Or maybe not. We have got all day and night in a boat, and we‟ll be

feeling really comfortable and cheerful after that swig of soup. There is nothing

to do but talk, smoke tobacco, and sip on shots of iced lemonade.”

“Shots of iced lemonade?”

“I snuck two bottles and two shot glasses into your backpack while you were

being applauded in the kitchen. Some of the applause was actually for my skillful

maneuvers, and that they remained undetected by you, like my changing into a

whole outfit without you noticing. You see, Adam Man,” he said tossing me his

tobacco pouch, “the best part of anything worthwhile is always left for last. Now,

roll me one of those cigarettes and choose your words wisely. I am here to tell

you everything, but the „everything‟ depends entirely on what you want to

remember. By the way, there is more tobacco in your backpack.” He chuckled.

“What else did you put in there?” I asked, enjoying myself thoroughly.

“Oh,” he grinned mischievously, “let‟s see what we want as we float down this

magnificent tributary.”

“Does it have a name?”

“The indigenous peoples in this region call it The Bob Near It River. Most likely

because we bob up and down upon it to get to the great Amazon, which I

suppose is the It they are referring too.” For a moment we became still. I took in

the magnificence of where we were.

But the silence was short-heard. There was something my mind was struggling

with, and I felt that if I did not somehow acknowledge it, I could not completely

relax. “What boggles my mind,” I started, “is the amount of work you would all

have to have done to script the last twenty four hours. There was so much said

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by Mr. and Mrs. Soup? How is it even possible to script all that? And then the

conversations just seemed to continue seamlessly when I was resting, or after I

shifted from the soup. How is it even possible for Mr Soup to remember all those

lines, and then to keep talking to me even when I was passed out?”

“He did not have to remember any lines, and you were never passed out, you

were simply in a deepened relax and allow state.”

“But if he did not remember his lines?” Something was not adding up.

“Mr. Man, he did not have to remember his lines because I was the only one

speaking. I was the only one who had to remember anything.”

“You mean…”

“Yes. Everything you heard spoken by me to you was me also speaking to them.

I was instructing them using hand signals just as a puppeteer pulls on the strings

of a puppet. They then behaved accordingly and worked with your eyes by using

their fingers to illustrate what I was saying. They were indeed using hand signals

for the blind: correcting the damage caused by left-to-right reading and writing.”

He smiled. I was astounded! “My voice,” he continued, “coming from just outside

your right hand visual periphery, could be considered brail for the ears. I was

engaging your left hand hemisphere from what you perceived as you right hand

side, as a way of balancing both. This is how we undo the effects of the printing

press on both the eye and the ear. Then, while you were in a soup-altered state,

with your face in the copper bowl, I sat with you and spoke to you. As my voice

came through your audio acoustic sensory receivers, you naturally and

automatically used memory retrieval to provide the visual image space. We were

in a sense working in a „wireless‟ landscape.” He smiled and looked into my eyes

for a response. I was stunned. Then what he was revealing really dawned on me,

as loudly as a copper bowl dropping onto the wooden table:

“Wait a moment,” I blurted, “are you telling me that it was you all along that I

was being instructed by, and not any of them? That you brought me all the way

here to receive instruction from you?” To the mind it was incredulous.

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“Of course,” he winked, “the medium is the message!” I was rendered

speechless.

He let me digest this added chapter of what had already felt like a complete

revelation. My mind spontaneously retrieved an image from the previous evening,

when I had been standing on the table by the pot after Mr. and Mrs. Soup had

just startled me by speaking. I remembered how I had been searching the room

for the medium and had located him standing against the back wall, his hands

raised, appearing to be conducting the whole room. Apparently, hearing the

Soups speak out loud had startled me into seeing beyond the staged

performance. In that moment I had glimpsed beyond the veil and seen the

medium actually massaging the moment. So, all along it had just been him and I.

I felt like I was meeting him all over again. “Now I get what you said when you

stated that this boat trip would be a coming out party for us both,” I commented.

“Indeed. And as I am now partially outed, which also means you are now

partially retrieved, it is your turn: you can choose to ask whatever questions you

like in an attempt to completely out me, and so completely retrieve yourself!” His

laughter spilt out over the boat and flowed back up river like an audio wake.

“There is more to discover about all of us, Adam Man, but as I stated, you must

lemon-squeeze me. Every question you ask will peel another layer off the onion,

and so hopefully cleanse our eyes with tears of laughter. If we are not laughing,

we are not really remembering. So, laughter is the medicine we are really after!

Fire away, ask your questions!” His eyes shone brightly through me and across

the view that stretched out behind me.

The medium had already placed the first question inside of me, and it was rising

eagerly into my mouth. “What is the sixth secret to …”

“No, no, no!” He put up one hand to silence me. “Do you want to speak from a

less-than place, or from an empowered one? Are you a magnificent creator, or

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are you a little man? Both places bring answers to their questions, but the

answers differ: one ends in tears, the other in cheers.”

“I want to speak from an empowered place. I declare myself a magnificent

creator!”

“So noted! Very good, then you are in charge. Let‟s play then: tell me six words

a god would not ever need to use?” I rolled and smoked a whole cigarette in

silence, trying to figure out the right words, but instead of words, a realization

arose. It slipped in unnoticed while I was dragging my fingers atop the passing

water, tickling it with its own splashes, talking to it about chicken soup secrets. A

god would never need to ask a question. If a god asks a question, a god is not

being a god.

“A god would not ever need to ask a question,” I offered, tentatively.

“Very good, you see you have this, Adam Man, it‟s all just a game, and I want

you to play with it. Questions can be used for other things than appearing

ignorant. It is how they are asked that matters. So what words do we normally

use to start a question?”

“What…”

“Yes…”

“When…”

“You‟ve got it…”

“Where… how…why…and…who?”

“Precisely. So you are welcome to ask me anything as long as you do not try to

take a shortcut by starting a sentence with one of those words. Questions asked

like that only lead to ignorance, they don‟t inspire answers that are useful. They

only cause separation.”

“Do you want some lemonade?” I asked playfully.

“Now, that is a useful way to ask a question! Yes, let‟s do lemonade shots!” He

wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Along with is and are,” he added, “do is an

acceptable way of commencing any investigation.” I extracted one of the bottles

and the two shot glasses from the rucksack. I now knew how to get in. He had

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shown me the door handle and how to turn it. I was determined to give this time

with him my best shot. The river banks passed by unnoticed, we now had each

other‟s full attention.

“Is there something obvious about the preparation of the soup that I missed?” I

asked. With his left hand still steadying the rudder-oar, he lifted his right and

gave me the hand signal for, „Yes‟.

“Oh,” I laughed blissfully, “it‟s going to be like that is it?”

“Maybe,” replied his fingers. We both roared with laugher and simultaneously

raised both our arms and fist-flicked our fingers toward the emerald blue sky

above us, with an added wrist-twist of course.

The boat for a moment veered sideways, rudderless in the current without his

hand on the oar. To onlookers from the passing banks it may have appeared as

if we were going off course, but we were not. The river took us anyway. For the

first time we were right on course. We were finally talking to each other. I sat

before him. He sat before me.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

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What happens when a reality television celebrity chef called Souperman

encounters a blind tourist who tells him his chicken soup is a mockery of a recipe

created by a legendary chicken soup maker called Mr. Soup who lives in The

Amazon Jungle? Join Adam Man on a journey into a deaf and mute community in

an attempt to discover a secret recipe for a chicken soup that transforms anyone

who sips it THE RETRIEVAL OF ADAM MAN is a fantastical conversation about

human to human communication and the impact technology is having upon it. It

is likely to leave you speechless.

Painted by Shannon McCarthy

shannonmccarthy.com

Michael Brown is the writer of

THE PRESENCE PROCESS and ALCHEMY OF THE HEART

www.thepresenceportal.com

REALITY FICTION SERIES

Bob did this did Bob