Mark Sutz

Soup

My skin began peeling off, inexplicably, one summer night. Once, a piece fell into the soup, carrot, I’d been stirring for an hour while the others worked on salads and entrees. My dinner guests said I’d finally hit the mark, cooked a soup worthy of awards.

I was prescribed a cream that worked instantly. My skin unwhitened and began to pink up. My friends said I looked better than a newborn. My wife rubbed my back gently until we both fell asleep, easily.

My skin became flush with the color of a man thirty years my junior. My children applauded my new-found health. Strangers smiled at me, and sad people shared their stories.

I visited an ethnic spice shop, bought some cardamom, basil, a rare white pepper and other spices I’d never used before. Like a chemist, I mixed them in my soup pots, but no one had brought a bowl to their lips and drained it in months.

I tossed the cream into the garbage before I left for the restaurant one afternoon. My wife found it and called me. “Why?” she asked.

Weeks later, alone, in the restaurant early, I peeled a small beginning of skin and floated it into the pot of mulligatawny. I stirred it for hours, beads of sweat gathering on my forehead. Not a bowl came back with a hint of soup that night.

Mark Sutz lives in Arizona, for now. He has just discovered Anna Netrebko and recommends her to, well, everyone. He thinks Tallinn is the bomb. He can be reached at masutz@gmail.com.