For the past three months, my daily walk down the street has been seasoned by a small but quite lovely addition to the neighborhood. Whenever I'd cross the street at Valencia and 21st, a friendly, almost fairy-like voice would ring from around the corner, beckoning me with a cherubic "Hello Sir, would you like to try some soup?"
While fate conspired for me to have just eaten or be on the way to a dinner every time I passed by, there still was such a magnetic pull in that voice, something that made me want to stop and be in the presence of whatever it was that was breaking my routine. In an almost cartoonish rendering of myself, my legs, stoically programmed to take me to my predetermined destination as quickly as possible, kept plowing ahead while my upper body housing the sensory headquarters kept hovering on the corner, lured by the sweet and mysterious offer, expanding my conflicted character like a gigantic imaginary elastic band.
Each time the old faithful legs prevailed, and after a momentary space and time-defying suspension in mid-air to bathe in the possibility of divine soup from a random stranger, the eternally curious and sensuous noggin snapped out of its state of wonderment, hurriedly catching up with the duty-bound part of myself.
