the soup 5: flight of the soup

the bell above the door jangled in a broken way as the door creaked open.
the lady entering had a sour expression and seemed to find being in my shop a distasteful experience. funny, because i was thinking her being in my shop was a distasteful experience, too.
i kept my eyes glued to the little portable dvd player, though.
i mean, i was watching doctor who.
the soup, sitting on the counter next to me, was utterly engrossed in the episode. i hadn’t heard even a twitter from inside its tin when the lady entered.
she stepped up to the counter.
she made one of those coughs people make when they’re not clearing their throat but want your complete and undivided attention.
i wasn’t falling for that.
“hello?” she growled. not that hello to her was a greeting. more a curse.
i wasn’t falling for that, either. i had much better things to be not doing. “in a minute.”
i could tell she was about to storm out, which would’ve been fine, but then all of a sudden she lashed out, snatched up the soup, dropped a fiver on the counter, snapped “fuck you. this is what i came for anyway. keep the change, asshole.”
and then she stormed out.
i sipped my coke. “what you came for, huh? i doubt that.”

bernadette was a flight attendent.
with that name, what else could she have been?
she was wearing a flight attendant uniform, complete with cap, when she’d barged into my shop like a hurricane through new orleans. not that i had noticed what she was wearing.
i mean, doctor who was on. and the doctor was doing stuff with that gizmodriver thingy of his. i loved that gadget thing.
she was looking for a can of soup when she came in. unfortunately for her, she’d picked up the soup and wasn’t nice enough for me to let her know the soup wasn’t for sale.
i can always tell the assholes from the nice people – nice people don’t come into my shop.
bernadette hopped into the waiting cab and headed to the airport, taking the soup with her. had i known, i would’ve bought a going away card for my tin-imprisoned pal. i always thought it needed a holiday.

the recent financial crisis had really hit hard on the aviation industry.
they’d had to fire pilots, ground air hostesses, and cut back on their budget.
simple things like free dinner rolls were the first to go.
then the in-flight meals took a beating.
that’s when bernadette had a plan. a plan she would test out on flight 793 – a plan which, should it work, would save her company millions in food expenses and perhaps earn her some kind of promotion. a raise. a slice of the pie. anything to get her out of this endangered business of air hostessing through the financial crisis.
her plan was simple.
it was elegant.
it involved the soup.

the flight took off without a hitch.
bernadette sat tight in her seat, her eyes bright as she contemplated her plan.
“you going to do it?” asked the other hostess. “really?”
bernadette nodded. “why not?”
“don’t you think they’ll notice?”
“are you serious? everyone knows airplane food tastes like shit anyway. all i’m doing is confirming the rumour for them.”
inside a small compartment above bernadette’s well-nested hair, the soup waited with infinite patience and only the minimum of humming.

bernadette opened the small container into which she had poured the soup before the flight. the smell of the soup had been strangely overpowering and for a moment she contemplated eating it all herself. but the dry voice inside her which spoke of the joy of promotion won out in the end, and she had upended the soup into a more suitable container for flight.
she pulled out the tower of styrofoam cups and began placing a dollop of the soup into each. then she filled it with water and stirred in a quarter-spoon of salt.
as the first cup came out of the airplane cooker, her assistant leaned in with a curious look. “hey, what’s that smell? it smells delicious.”
“hmm?” bernadette had hardly noticed, but now she thought about it, it did smell quite good indeed. she was a bit disappointed to realise she couldn’t remember where she’d bought it from. she didn’t think she’d ever be able to find my shop again.
thank god for small mercies.
“it’s the soup,” she told her assistant. “start serving.”

everyone wanted a cup.
in the end, bernadette could only slop in a half-teaspoon of the soup into each cup, but there wasn’t even a single complaint. no one seemed to want anything else.
in the end she saved herself a cup and shared it with her assistant.
“mmm,” her assistant mmmed. “that’s yum.”
bernadette had to agree.

the soup was overwhelmed.
it didn’t know which way to turn.
this way, that way, every which way but loose.
it felt like it was drunk, swimming in a small pond of people.
it was like a giant cocktail – layers upon layers of flavours separated by colours, shapes, and sizes.
the soup moved.
slowly, at first…

the soup sat in the aisle and thought it might actually be a bit full.
it began rolling, slowly, between the seats, aware that other than a few spots of blood, there really wasn’t much left of all the people who’d been here a few minutes ago.
the moment when they were all absorbed into the soup was a moment to be treasured. it’d been so long, thought the soup since it last attended a banquet.
happy, the soup drifted between the seats, rolling with the plane’s slight changes in direction. almost lazily, it spiralled around an abandoned shoe and pressed up momentarily against a disgarded doll – those things always survive, don’t they? – before it paused at the end of the aisle and thought it could smell something.
from behind a door, someone coughed.
intrigued, the soup headed toward the cockpit door, thinking cheerful thoughts of dessert.

i read about the plane crash in the papers and instinctively knew where the soup had ended up.
a few weeks later, i found myself sitting beside an empty tin down at the beach, feeding leftover chips to some gulls as the waves beat the shore like a drum.
an hour or so passed before i saw the soup float onto the sand like a tired jellyfish. it rolled slowly toward me.
“how was the flight?” i asked.
not as bad as the swim, said the soup.
“next time you might like to let the pilot live.”
what for? asked the soup, genuinely puzzled as it pulled itself up and into its tin.
“they can generally land the plane in a place somewhat easier to make it home.”
maybe, said the soup. but then i wouldn’t get to try all that seafood on the return trip.

later, as we watched another episode of doctor who, the soup sighed in a contented way.
i think you were right, said the soup. i really did need a holiday.

this episode was dedicated to my good friend, azly.

also, for further airplane fun, check out these cockpit conversations…

Tags: customers, the soup, working in retail