Words, words, words. I vomit on the paper and move the half-digested pieces around hoping they’ll arrange themselves into a coherent thought. Coherent thoughts become the sentences and dialogues that could or would somehow order themselves into an idea to be conveyed across time and space. What does it all mean? Does it have to mean anything at all? If it doesn’t is this an exercise in futility? How could it be so? How could it be meaningless, for if all were so then the question itself would be meaningless. Yet if the question has meaning then all cannot be so. If it does convey meaning then is it vain or divine at its core? Perhaps it’s a bit both.

“To be or not to be”, that was the first question but what comes after that. Am I “to be” until the shear mass of it all collaspes in on itself. Question after question arises in my mind and each time I wring out an answer it splits into more questions like an existential hydra. My Lernaean conundrum continues and spirals out of my control until the only solution seems to be lopping off my own head with sword and flame. I will not, of course, lop off my own head and there in lies the answer. There is something intrinsic at the core of who we are. Whether by divine touch or the self-replicating sequence of genes there is purpose and value that beats at the center of our soul and that is why I write. Not strictly for your pleasure or mine, but because the more story I construct the more prima facie my existence becomes. It is a cure for nihilism, an answer to prayers, and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am a strange man in a strange land

How do I make you see?

That the place from which I hail

Is unfamiliar to me.

I know the streets I know the trees

It has not changed that much.

I recognize faces from my youth

Yet I feel so out of touch.

Something’s different something’s off

Though I cannot quite place it.

Part of me wants to turn away

But I know that I must face it.

Perhaps the house has somehow changed

Was the road always this dusty

My bedroom appears to be the same

But memories have all turned musty

I left this place so long ago

This place that helped build me

For destinations both near and far

The world I yearned to see

But something happened along the way

A transformation I did not see

Now staring at the face in the mirror

I realize the difference is me

“Hey mister, what flavor is yours?” the little girl almost whispered as Jack was about to pass her by. She couldn’t have been more than 8 years old standing there alone in front of the café wearing a yellow dress that would have been better suited for summer. Her blond ringlet curls bounced and shimmered in winter’s early morning light as she worked to catch melting ice cream before it could run off her cone. Even though she was 5 feet away Jack hadn’t noticed her before.

“Well I don’t have one” Jack said

She looked up from her cone with a half puzzled, half amused look and replied “Of course you do, everybody has one. His was mint chocolate. It’s very tasty”

“Well I’m not lucky enough to have any ice cream today” he replied half paying attention to the little girl, half looking at his watch. Today was not the day to be late for work.

“Not your ice cream silly, your soul.” She replied in voice that almost seemed to come not from her but his own head

“Oh, ok…wait what did you say” Jack asked suddenly jarred back to the moment.

"What flavor is your soul" she aske with a giggle that seemed to echo in his head

Jack stared at the odd little girl before he turned to notice they were standing on an otherwise empty street.

Jack asked, “Where are your parents?” but was given no reply

He pushed “Are you ok?” Still not a sound from the girl who had returned to slurping her treat.

“Ok, stay right there for a minute” Jack ordered as he stuck his head in the door of the café.

“Anybody know this little girl?” he asked anyone who was listening.

“What little girl?” the barista replied without even looking up from her foaming milk.

“This one right…” he turned to find her gone. Jack’s head quickly shifted up and down the sidewalk. He looked across the street and in nearby cars. He even started down the alley between the café and the bodega. A cold breeze that gushed out of the alley made him to pause long enough to cinch his heavy coat tightly which caused him to notice his watch again. Jack decided that he had no time for creepy little girls or their games. It was presentation day and he wanted to be in early to review the proposal with his team.

In vain is the best way to describe Jack’s efforts to focus that day. All around him was a fervor of activity as his team sharpened their talking points, adjusted their figures, and edited the PowerPoint. This was a day would make or break not just his career but all of theirs as well. Still all he could think about was that little girl. What a weird question to be asked, the flavor of a soul. Jack tried to forget about it, tried to focus on the task at hand, but he kept coming back to that question. What flavor was his soul? The more the day progressed the more that question burned its way through my mind, jumping every break he put in front of it until all other thoughts were turned to ash in its wake. All morning long he pondered it. He mulled it over. He crumpled it up and tossed it into the mind’s wastebasket only to come scrambling back to retrieve it. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath trying to will the thought out of his head.

“Jack.” a distant voice called

“Jack.” It came again just a little clearer.

“Jack!” it jarred him back to reality

“Jack, its go time” Mike said as he pulled his suit jacket up over his shoulders “Wake up and get your game face on man”

With a slight shake of the head Jack rose from his chair and straightened his tie.

“Can I ask you something, Mike?” he asked

“Shoot” Mike replied as he grabbed up his stack of notes

“What do you think a soul taste like?” Jack asked more timidly than he had intended.

“Look Jack I don’t know what’s up with you today, but its time shake that shit off. Are you ready for this or not?” Mike asked with an unamused glare.

Jack had no answer for him. He had no answer for anything now. His mind was besieged with a singular thought that he couldn’t shake.

“I have to go” Jack said as he slipped past Mike and headed for the elevator. He caught it just in time to slip in as the doors to closed on Mike screaming “Where the hell are you going?”

Home is where Jack went and that is where he stayed. Days passed with Jack locked away behind his door desperately searching for the answer. For the first few days there were missed phone calls and occasional knock on the door to be ignored but that soon subsided. The last message he even bothered to notice was a text from Mike. “You know you were fired, right!?”.

“Not the question I need to answer Mike.” Jack muttered to himself as he tossed the phone into a kitchen drawer and slammed it shut. Jack could feel himself descending into some sort of madness but like a pilot stuck in a tailspin he felt helpless to stop it. Part of him didn’t want to stop it. It, this question, haunted his days and when he could sleep it echoed in his dreams. Even though he could feel his mind being consumed there was a yearning that drove him onward. He needed answer. He needed an end to his torment.

Jack turned to the great philosophers and thinkers of the ages. He read Aristotle and Confucius, Buddha and Descartes, St. Augustine and Kant. He even briefly meditated over a bowl of chicken soup. So many theories on origination, composition, and purpose but nothing on flavor. He read Reddit boards and social media posts from every crackpot guru he could find. Still nothing. Day turned to night and back into day again as he studied and read. He prayed to a God he barely believed in but when that fell on deaf ears he begged the others for an answer. Nothing. He carved the question on the walls and scribbled it on the ceiling until he was surrounded, until it engulfed him. Nothing seemed to quench the flames in his head that raged more intensely with every passing hour. None of the great theorizing or pontificating of the ages satisfied his need for an answer. Why couldn’t he figure this out? What was wrong with him? Who even asked a question like this? Then one night, as Jack lay exhausted in the kitchen floor, it came to him.

“Ask her” Jack’s mind whispered in a voice he almost didn’t recognize.

“That was it!” he yelled pulling himself up off the floor. “I need to find that little girl”

The elevator in his building was slow so Jack tore down 5 stories of stairs. He may have knocked a neighbor over in the process, but he never even looked back to check. Instead Jack burst through the doors and into the night. The streetlamps and pedestrians blurred past as he covered the 6 blocks to the café. Jack’s legs burned and his lungs threatened to burst from the effort but he could feel desperation turning to panic so he pushed on.

“Please be there” he begged between gasps for air. Jack rounded the corner and there she was. Same spot, same dress. Her empty hands were tucked behind her as she leaned against the exterior wall of the café looking at her shoes “I’ve been waiting for you” she said without looking up.

“You remember me?” Jack manage to ask between breaths

“Is that really what you came all this way to ask me?” she inquired as her gaze rose to meet his. Her Cheshire cat grin and pale blue eyes pierced the darkness around her. Those eyes pierced Jack as well. That was the moment that he broke. Falling to his knees in front of this little girl Jack wept uncontrollably into his cupped hands “I just want to know what it tastes like” he sobbed “Please, just tell me!”

“Don’t cry mister, you’re almost ready.” she said as she took his hand. Her gentle touch seemed to lift him off his knees as her bouncing golden curls beckoned him to follow her down the dark alley.

“Actually, souls all taste different” she said, “just depends on the person.” As she spoke, Jack could feel himself calming down as her soothing voice seemed to reach in and caress his very mind. He barely even noticed that the hand holding his was beginning to stretch and twist, wrapping around his arm, as the fingers slowly worked their way up and past his shoulder.

“I’ve had spicy ones and I’ve had sweet ones. I’ve even had yucky old nasty ones. Taste like ash and nobody likes that” she said as he felt her grip tighten around his neck and chest. They were deep in the alley now, or so he assumed. It was darker than it should have been and all Jack could see was the little girl in front of him. All he could hear was her voice. Somewhere in the back of Jack’s head the last sane neuron fired off an alarm, begging his legs to engage, but it was drowned out by her voice. A siren’s song that promised the answer that Jack so frantically craved. She turned back to face him, pale blue eyes now ghost white, as she said “but I’m betting yours is going to be oh so tasty”

The next day as Anita stepped out of the café, latte in hand, she smiled at a little girl enjoying an ice cream cone.

“What flavor you got there?” Anita asked as she paused to adjust her purse

“Butter Pecan” the little girl answered.

“Well that sounds delicious” Anita said

“Oh, it is yummy” the little girl replied as she looked up at Anita with an innocent smile “Ma’am, can I ask you a question?”

Bloodline mine

Aligns, inclines, entwines

Thine shrine divine

Enshrines, defines, consigns

Fine opine

Predefines, countermines

There could be a time when you are asked the question, by yourself or maybe another. This will be no ordinary question, nor will it be one for which you have a readily available answer. It is an unsettling moment that your consciousness may first try to pass off as nothing more than the fanciful whimsy of a bored mind. You vainly attempt to carry on as if the world had not just been set ablaze, trying in futility to focus on the common and mundane pieces that make up the fabric of your day to day life but the flames will not subside. Instead they grow from a small spark in your subconscious, quickly jumping breaks and spreading till they propagate into the wild blaze that consumes all your thoughts. Quickly it burns through mind and soul until nothing is left except the smoldering ashes of what your world used to be. Only then, as you sift through ashes, can you see the question for what it is. It is the universe challenging you to truly understand it better.

To know something in its essence, to know what drives it, what inspires it, is to obtain true understanding. This is the loftiest of goals and one our society constantly fails, not to achieve, but pursue. We live in a society of instant information where so many of us confuse knowledge with wisdom. We know so much but understand so little. From the time we are young we are indoctrinated with too many facts and not enough ideas. It is the tragedy of our generation that has built a wall around our minds. Great leaps of innovation and shifts in philosophy have never been achieved by wrapping one’s self in the established and comfortable. They are driven by the new and the vexing. There are many people who fear the flames as well as the challenges it brings. They beat back at the fire because it threatens the foundation they have built their view of the world on. A view that they have wrapped themselves in like a childhood blanket. As when we were children, we are unwilling to let it go of it all the while failing to realize that to have a better house one must first build a stronger foundation.

I implore you not to make this mistake because it is a signature moment in your life with origins that reach back to the inception of the soul itself. It may have first been contemplated around a prehistoric fire as some distant ancestor searched the vastness of the nighttime sky asking, “Who am I?” Perhaps it was pondered by Adam and Eve outside the gates of Eden. Maybe the beginning matters and maybe it does not. For all I know that is the question for you. What truly matters is the way the fire changes you. The way it consumes the comfortably assumed and returns the fire hardened because I can promise you one thing. In today’s world unchallenged preconceived notions are truly root of all evil.

Turn off the interstate in what is the very definition of a fly over state. Take the off ramp to a 4 lane State Route that exists only to connect two dots on a map unfamiliar to anyone but the natives. Half way between those two dots you arrive at an intersection with a 2 lane County Road. Here you will find a few gas stations with various amenities attached. A mechanics shop, a restaurant, or salon. There might even be video rental store still clinging to life in an area that struggles with reliable internet. The flashing yellow light at the intersection beckons you to stock up on supplies and watch for on-coming traffic. Leaving this oasis of unleaded gasoline and fizzy drinks behind you continue down the County Road until it turns into a paved farm road. Be careful to dodge alignment ending pot holes while keeping a wary eye out for wildlife or loose livestock dodging you. Eventually the asphalt begins to break apart until it gives way to gravel and dirt. Follow this dusty path a bit longer till it dead ends at the driveway. You have arrived. Home.

You brace for an arrival that will likely be chaotic. Arms laden with suitcases and children are unburdened to make to room for welcoming hugs and kisses. Dogs bark and children squeal with excitement as the compulsory platitudes are issued by the grandparents.

“My how big you’ve gotten”.

“What are you feeding these kids”?

“Do you know how much Papa and Nana have missed you”?

“Yes, Nana bought your favorite cookies”.

“Oh, stop your fussing one cookie isn’t going to ruin their dinner”.

Eventually the car gets unloaded and the dogs are banished to the yard to expend their energy chasing the squirrels back into their arboreal homes. Travel weary children settle into a distracting mixture of playing with Papa and watching their favorite cartoons. Meanwhile their parents busy themselves helping Nana finish dinner as she is debriefed on the status of her diasporic family. The table is set, and dinner is served. For the most part conversation is casual and polite though you’ll likely have to dodge a few potential flare ups. For example, the “When are you going to move my grandchildren closer to home?” conversation can be squashed by the gentle retort “When you get a real property tax and build a decent school for them”. Looks will be exchanged but the minefield is successfully navigated. Dishes are put away, and the family retires to the living room. Soon after exhausted and well-fed children are bathed and put to bed. Take in a deep breath. Exhale.

With the children settled in their beds and my parent’s curiosity momentarily satiated I grab my opportunity to step out on the porch. The setting sun ignites the western horizon in hues of orange and pink as the evening stars appear in the twilight to herald the coming night. There is a cool wind blowing in from the east that adds a crisp freshness to the air. It is in these brief respites of solitude that can I hear the stillness of the earth. Now let me be clear here, stillness is not the same as quiet. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The spring fed creek babbles through the forest as frogs and crickets call out to each other from the shadowed areas around it. Off in the distances the voices of owls rise as those of the cows fade. It is a veritable symphony from time immemorial complete with its own pitch and timbre. It’s not quiet, but it is tranquil. The kind of tranquility that only exists when every fiber of the world knows its place in the order of things. The suns comes up and the sun goes down all the while nature responds in the same patient manner it has for millennia. It is as if everything is the way it should be.

For me, however, it is so much more than stillness. More than tranquility. My children now play on the same dark blue carpet that once bore the weight of my own small feet. Tonight I will sleep in my old room downstairs that still has the same “not quite musty” basement smell that it had 20 years ago. When I wake in the morning I will likely be greeted by the smell of eggs and bacon along with my mother’s standard, “Good morning buddy” as if I were on my way out the door to school. I have exchanged my favorite Handy Smurf glass for a coffee cup brandishing the emblem of whatever state my parents picked it up in. Still, I enjoy watching my own son carefully grip that same glass with two hands because he just loves drinking out of “Daddy’s cup”. It is a notion of familiarity that occupies an unshakable place in my mind. It is foundational.

That’s not to say that I am unaware of time’s incessant march toward decay and entropy. I’m not blinded by my own la vie en rose. In this house I helped my parents build so long ago it confronts me at every turn. The weather grey deck boards, distorted from the changing of the seasons, buck their nails in a vain attempt to free themselves. Years of traffic manifest itself as pale thin spots in the once lush carpet. Cracks in the drywall and misaligned doors betray not just a shifting foundation, but ephemeral nature of the structure. The wrinkles and gray hairs that now adorn my parents do much the same. That is why I listen.

I listen to the wind whispering in the pines. I listen to the laughter of my children chasing their cousins around the couch and down the hall. I listen to my mother’s gentle warning that veers them away from kitchen and back into the living room. Listen to my father dole out life lessons to his grandchildren like a Gideon with his bibles. I breath it all in deep and hold there a moment too long hoping that some of it will infuse my very soul. I do this because I know that one day the foundation will crumble. Boards will rot and nails will rust. One day tears will fall as hymns are sung around dated stones. On those days I will gird myself with more than memories. I will have a sense of belonging instilled deep inside my core. Roots that I can transfer to the next construct of wood and concrete in need of being filled with love and laughter. Wiser men than I have lamented that you can’t go back home again but maybe, just maybe, you can take a piece of it with you.