Onion Soup: A Symphony

By Leonie Rowland

I dress for dinner in wet clothes. 

Today, I planned to wear jeans and a t-shirt, but the jeans have already dried. Rain drums  on the window: put them on and step outside put them on and step outside put them on and step— I choose a dress instead. It wraps around my belly, curls around my bones. I am ready to  eat. 

While I’m cooking, I conduct the kitchen like an orchestra. The stove hums and the pot  boils: instruments tuning before a concert. I sing with them, spinning, water dripping on the  floor. Dinner is served. 

There is a large chunk of bread in my soup, coated with cheese. When I touch it with my  spoon, it breaks apart. I lift it to my lips, and the cheese reaches out of the broth and into my  mouth. The chair is damp beneath me. 

For a moment, the soup, the bowl and I are one. But then the bread liquifies, and I am  overcome with the sensation that nothing is solid, that the room is dissolving. I have no choice  but to swallow. I cry out, soup spilling from my mouth as my orchestra reaches a crescendo: every  last drop, the kettle says, and the oven murmurs yes yes as I lift the bowl with both hands and  drink. 

My stomach is too full to be digesting onions; I am not sure what I have eaten. The rain stops—my clothes are dry, bloating—but water continues to fall, crashing into  the sink like cymbals. An insect lands in my empty bowl, too late for both of us. It harmonizes with the fridge. 

I wash it away with shaking hands, but the buzzing doesn’t stop.

Leonie lives in Manchester and has an MA in Gothic literature. Her most recent work has been published by Ad Hoc Fiction, The Cabinet of Heed and Emerge Literary Journal, among others. Leonie’s debut chapbook, In Bed with Melon Bread, is forthcoming from Dreich in March 2021. She is Editor-in-Chief of The Hungry Ghost Project. You can find her on Twitter @leonie_rowland or visit her website at http://leonierowland.com.