For ten minutes I stood completely enchanted and enthralled with scummy soup skin. Ordinarily, I glance at those cafeteria pots of soup with distaste and not a second thought. Today, however, I was compelled to stare, perfectly intrigued.
The skin was a soft, matte opaque olive color (I believe it was split pea). Dancing across it's surface were tiny sequences of ripples and wrinkles, flitting about, rapidly appearing and disappearing, joining each other and splitting apart in conjuction with the currents of heat beneath their surface. This moment made me both happy and sad. Happy because it reminded me of all the beauty and novelty in the world. Sad because of the realization that I am missing out on so much of that beauty. Who knows what the salad dressing was doing...