soup

On Christmas Eve we are determined to spend a long time preparing it, almost the whole day. As we do so we carefully examine the anatomy of the bodies and heads of the (poor uncooked beetroot across the multiverse), the beetroot (burak) is cleaned, and shredded before being placing in the vegetable stock which we made yesterday. They are as expected the same here as they were there. He crumbles the pieces of Cep mushroom into the liquid. An additional carrot, a single small onion and sprigs of herbs will be added. When the soup is ready the the the subtle flavours, perhaps it will be noble this year will disclose the rich mixture of the earth and beetroot in the aroma. [cooking] The cooked mushroom pieces are extracted and modeled into small Pieroszki dumplings. The soup is strained. A mouth explodes. […] Everyone arrives and waits impatiently, hungrily having arrived from all over europe via London and the home counties, though none have come from as far as he has, the soup is loved so much that it may be one of the reasons why Christmas is celebrated by this atheistic group of friends and family. In the other room beside the artificial tree the presents are like uneating guests waiting to be engaged with after the main event whilst drinking dessert vodka. The soup itself is everyone’s pretty niece in a deep red dress and black leggings, her running shoes in the hall waiting for her in case she needs to run, drinking a glass of sweet wine. The soup is placed in the centre of the table and carefully, to avoid drops and spills, ladled out. Together, in a truthful gesture of rare solidarity we we we speak of its value, praising it, but each singularity savours the fragrance, the taste alone, we linger over it as if the moment is unrepeatable. […] The next day, the soup having rested a little, it is even more delicious. What remains of the soup is divided up into a container that is refrigerated for eating in a few days time and a saucepan with three or four bowls clear liquid. What remains is exchanging molecules between the local universes. We have nearly forgotten how implausible the soup will seem in a few weeks, until in nearly a years time we will begin to prepare the soup (liquid) for next year. Nothing is more miraculous than European Beetroot soup (Burakowa zupa) , and perhaps, equally, nothing more completely proves the impossible limits of the thing than that it is impossible to keep and repeat. Though in each universe in the multiverse he knows that each bowl of soup this year is identical whilst next years and last years were different, the future is unknowable and irreversible, just as each instance of Z and he are identical. He idly stirs the soup as it warms on the hob.