Something's Cooking in Adelaide

Hands—that was his tag name—flipped his skateboard slightly off angle. It landed upright and continued to roll up the hill and into a laneway across the street. Chasing after it, he turned in to see it bounce off a wall and flash diagonally out of view behind a spiral staircase.

That’s weird, he thought.

Down hill they went now, and across a main road he didn’t remember roaming before. Then the board donged a lady sitting by a window. She halted it with her foot. Dodging traffic, Hands arrived huffing and sweaty. He flicked his long fringe, plucked up his board and wheezed out his best apology. 

The woman was much older than her stature had showed, lean but not frail. Her cavern dented face grinned.

‘That’s ok dear.’ she said like a warm grandmother.

Her shawl slipped a little to reveal a sporty leotard and trendy loose pants that Hands might have worn for skating. Curious he looked up at the sign above them: Soul Kitchen. Feeling a bit peckish, he asked,

‘Do you sell fries?’

‘Oh no,’ she said ‘We don’t sell any food here.’

‘So what do you sell then?’

‘Nothing Dear. It’s all free.’

His thick eyebrows twisted.

‘We do what the sign says. We cook souls.’

Ok, this woman is crazy. And I’m outa here. Hands resolved

‘Before you go, why don’t you have one of my gluten-free organic ginger cookies.’

He’d been skating on empty for hours and couldn’t resist the temptation.

When he got home, his big sister didn’t miss a beat.

‘Saul, why haven’t you fixed my car? You know I need it to get to work! I’m so tired of having to get up early and tomorrow’s Monday! I don’t care if you have to skip school I need it fixed by the end of the week. We just can’t afford for me to do busses and trains anymore.’

Hands was sheepish. He hugged his sister, said he was sorry and would sort it out. She dried her tears before they showed.

‘I mean it Saul. I am doing the best I can since dad died too, but you have to help me.’

‘I’ll fix it Gretz, don’t worry. Here, have the other half of my cookie.’

With his magic hands, her brother directed the skateboard into his room while he went to freshen up.

‘I’ll start on the car after lunch!’ he yelled out from the hallway.

Gretz, really Gabriela, had been a well-known street artist in "Radelaide" before their mother passed away and their dad decided to leave the city.  She taught Hands about graffiti. This year was their first for being orphans. Gretz had to defer her studies to manage, while Hands completed his last year of High School and made online videos about card tricks for some pocket money.

As Hands took a shower, she got started with lunch. There wasn’t much to work with. Some cans of beans, a jar of olives, flour, oil, spices on a rack among the usual condiments. Gretz moaned. She was tempted to order food but knew that they really couldn’t afford it. A sense of calm then washed over her as if to say, ‘It’s ok. We’ve got this.’ And so she started to make some dough.

By the time Hands got out of the shower, the dough was in the bowl covered with a damp tea towel. Gretz, however, was missing.

‘Gretz!’ he called out the back door. But no answer. He shrugged,

Maybe she’s gone to buy food.

Expecting to be famished at that thought, to his surprise he was good to go. After checking a few snapchats he felt perhaps it was time to work on the car rather than wait.

Two hours later, Hands comes in from the shed for another shower to find the most delicious banquet had been laden out on the dining table.

‘Where’d you get all that?’

‘I’ll tell you later, go wash all that grease off first’ said Gretz with a laugh.

Each thought of the other that she or he was extraordinarily chirpy. When Hands came back in to eat, he shared the good news.

‘Car’s fixed.’

‘What? Impossible.’

‘I know right. But somehow I just knew what to do and I felt this burst of energy like…’

‘a warm oil flowing through your body? And a voice telling you what to do?’

‘WTF! How did you know?’

‘I had the same experience. Knowing we don’t have money, something inside told me to go to the local Community Garden. That’s where all this food came from. And somehow I managed to cook it all in record time.’

‘OK… well I am so hungry now. It smells amazing.’

Hands plonked himself down and ate. Gretz was curious as to how it tasted.

He paused to take in how good the meal was.

‘So, how is it?’

‘I’ve never tasted anything so rad. This is dope!’

Gretz joined in the feast. After they were satisfied enough they spoke.

‘So, what do you think that was all about?’ piped Gretz

‘I dunno. Maybe it’s a full moon tonight.’

‘Seriously, don’t you think it’s weird?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ve never had so much energy. Oh wait…’

‘What?’

‘Where did you get that cookie?’

‘An old lady gave it to me.’

‘Don’t joke. Did your skater friends shoot you that? Was it laced?’

‘Nah, legit. I had knocked her with my skateboard and the nice old lady gave me the cookie. Don’t worry, she said it’s gluten-free and all that.’

‘Saul!’ Gretz tore at her hair, ‘You don’t accept "cookies" from strangers: "How to Survive Life 101?"’

‘Yes, mum.’

‘Stop it. I’m serious. I am sure she’s giving out drugs.’

‘Come to think of it, she was a bit strange.’

‘Like how?’

Hands relayed the whole story.

‘That’s it! Time to investigate. What was the name of that road again?’

‘Damascus’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘It’s ok, I’ll come with you.’

When they arrived, the "shop" was closed. No old lady. But cars were pulling in down the side so they followed the driveway to a rather large carpark. As people got out they were super animated.

‘Excuse me,’ said Gretz, ‘what is this place?’

‘It’s Soul Kitchen, would you care to join us?’ invited the Woodstock-looking stranger.

Two doors were flung open and people trailed through barefoot via ushers at the door rubbing oil and gold flakes on foreheads and uttering some sort of blessing. Gretz eyed Hands and they played along.

Each was given a yoga mat and told to find a comfortable place on the floor. As the crowd of about 200 settled to a hush, a curtain was rolled open to reveal the same elderly woman on the stage seated in lotus position. She was in a deep state of meditation.

Everyone imitated her posture and hand gestures. Everything was silent for an eternity before she spoke with eyes still nearly shut.

‘Jesus said, “Do not hide your light under a bushel”. This is the pushan mudra, it activates your solar plexus… Children alight!” she boomed through a reverberating mic as she moved into a sitting crane posture, arms out stretched.

As people followed many others too were ignited with a violet flame upon their heads. Gretz and Hands were aghast.

‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t always happen the first time’ said a gas-lit man to their right. Five minutes later and the guru moved again.

‘Seraphim posture.’

Gretz was shaking with fright as she followed into the yoga position, chin held back.

‘We look to our heavenly father above. We do what we see him doing. Breathe his holy spirit in deep. Now exhale and bless the world. Head down, hold ankles.’

Noticing the guests were freaking out, the woman to the left of them—whose flame now rested on the back of her neck—cocked her head slightly and whispered,

‘You must have heard her voice today, guiding you here. Trust her, listen and find your centre. It’s ok, it’s safe.’

Gertz and Hands were so desperate to feel safe. They closed their eyes, breathed in deeply and tried to block out the crazy.

After almost two hours of this mishmash of yoga and religion, all came back into lotus position and then the guru got up and walked around the hall addressing each devotee personally. Eventually she came round to the pair.

‘Hello Paul.’ Hands was too polite to correct her. ‘This week you will need the shunya mudra, as you are going to be skating in some heavy traffic. Position your hands like so. This will create a bubble of space around you to make it safe to move. The scripture for you today is ‘God hasn’t given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind’. Recite it with this mudra as often as you feel led.

‘Gamaliela,’ She’s so close. But even that is too freaky, thought Gretz. ‘Yoni mudra is what you will need.’ She demonstrated by weaving her fingers into position with touching pointers facing down and touching thumbs up. ‘You will do well to recite Psalm 23 this week. I am sure you can google it.’

She moved onto the others in like fashion until everyone was internalising their personalised instruction. Then she returned to her mat, bowed a ‘Namaste’ and the curtain was closed. And Gabriela and Saul were converted.