Soup When I was living in Syracuse, I had many apartment mates. Audrey was a most memorable apartment mate. Audrey was fresh out of home, new on her own, and studying for her masters degree. It quickly became apparent that Audrey was tended to by her mother back home: she, like me, had no domestic skills. I had no domestic skills because I chose not to acquire any - Audrey had no domestic skills because she had never lived on her own until now. Audrey was frightened by thunder, and by most things. She was clumsy, and once won a nasty-looking bruise when tripped in her hurry to catch the bus, fell, and hit her chin on the stair railing. Audrey was innocent, and her naïveté made her behave in a way that often annoyed me and sometimes made me laugh. Audrey valiantly learned how to cook. One evening, she made soup with cabbages and carrots and pork and bones. The soup was good; I liked it and we had a few bowls over the next few days. She kept adding water to the pot until flavor was almost gone from the soup and we were just drinking hot water. After we agreed that the soup was "pretty much dead", Audrey put the pot back on the stove, on the rear burner. Audrey tried her hand at other dishes. She was gracious enough to invite me to eat with her. We would talk about events of our day. A few weeks later, I was foraging for food in the cupboard. I noticed the soup pot on the rear burner. With fondness, I remembered the soup we had a few weeks ago. With alarm, I realized that the pot appeared to not have been moved since it was placed on the rear left burner. If I remembered correctly, the pot was not empty. I called out to Audrey. "Hey, Audrey, is there something still in this pot?" I asked as she came into the kitchen. "…Y…e…a…h…" Audrey had a strange look. "So, you didn't empty it or… what?" I was sincerely interested in her answer. "Well, a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to dump it, but when I got close and lifted the lid a little, a horrible smell hit me so hard that I closed the lid and left it there." Audrey said. I stared at her. Hard. I was trying to understand her. "So… did you empty it or… what?" I repeated. "…No… I'll do it this weekend." (a few days from now) She said. "Ok. You really want to dump this thing..." I said, thinking that I should say more but not wanting to burst into a maniacal laughter. Weekend came. What a glorious spring day it was in central New York. The sun came through the window of my room, rays seeping through thick branches of the tree. an occasional squirrel bounce from its limbs. Birds chirped and smell of fresh cut grass wafted through my window. A blood-curdling scream snapped my focus and I looked up from my reading. Thunderous clapping of footsteps flew up the stairs and Audrey stomped into my room. She looked at me sprawling on the carpet and screamed. "THERE ARE WORMS SO MANY WORMS WAAAAAAA!" She was about to cry, or perhaps already crying a little. I got up slowly from the floor. My lack of surprise did not calm her down. Her eyes, red and wide, pooled with tears at the ordeal. "It can't be that bad," I said, "maggots happen all the time, just hose down the pot and it will be all over." "But… " Audrey's eyes grew in horror, "these maggots are so… fat… and huge… I can't… I'm going to throw the pot in the trash… I can't use it anymore… oh god…" "What? Throw away a perfectly good pot? That's crazy!" I said. "I'm telling you, the maggots are not ordinary maggots!" She retreated. "Gosh, how bad could it be? Do you want me to hose it down for you?" "Would you? Oh, would you?" I walked down the stairs and onto the lawn where the pot sat, its lid off. The watering hose was nearby, a small stream trickling onto the grass. I told Audrey to turn the hose on, full force. I walked toward the pot. As I approached, I saw the mass of milky white, quivering in unison. I peered into the pot now. The maggots have fed well. They had achieved proportions beyond my wildest expectations. I had worked with fruit flies (drosophilae) in genetics lab before. Drosophilae babies were no larger than the "l" that you see on this page. Soup-fed maggots, however, were the size of Tootsie rolls. Each plump, white Tootsie roll climbed around and on top of each other. There was no "food" left - just a pot of maggots. They must have finished everything, were they now feeding off each other? "Hey, I think I can see a face on these little guys." I said. Audrey yelped and jumped away, even though she was nowhere close to where I was standing. I pointed the hose into the pot and flushed the content onto the grass. Audrey fled up the stairs. After a few minutes, she came back down. I was still standing on the lawn, flushing the pot with the watering hose. "See, if I flush these maggots onto the grass, maybe they would grow up to be flies, and fly away." I said. I don't think Audrey appreciated my philosophical supposition. We walked up the stairs, empty pot in hand. For the next three days, Audrey boiled water and alcohol in the pot to sanitize it. We had a few more courses of soup made in this pot. Copyright (c) 2001-2009 by Jane Chin, All Rights Reserved. Back to Rate of Attrition