Of my lessons under Imam Hapsut and the secrets of psychic cooking

In the desolate waste residing in the shadow of all great cities, humanity festers in the contagion of its own refuse.  Stagnation, the mantra of the hunched and cowed; forgotten souls exist without thought or bearing.  In one of these great deserts resides a hermit, a man of stately poise within such wasted humanity.  He hides alone amongst gray walls of conformity and bleak tracts of cement.  Within this desert I sought the wisdom of one greater than myself.  I write this today, having not long departed from the company of the great hermit Imam known as Hapsut.  What follows are an account of the man and his teachings; the secrets of psychic cooking.

Hapsut

I found him not in the great restaurants of the city, nor in the lonely cafeterias; I was pointed his direction by a quiet soul, calm and sagacious.  It was a mild autumn day and I had been released from my work many hours early.  With nothing to do and not a chance to plan my free time, my release being quite unexpected, I wandered into a local cafe.  After ordering my coffee I was lost in quiet reflection, sitting by a window, basking in the cool blue light of an overcast sky.  My gaze wandered up from the steam of my coffee to discover a stranger, wrapped in dark sheathes of cloth, black as jet.  But it wasn’t quite a stranger, rather, an old acquaintance, long absent but not wholly forgotten.  And as the stranger sat before me a comfort washed over by being – from black robes rolled a dark warmth. 
I asked her where she had gone, how had she faded so slowly from my life.  She had been, as are many I fear, caught up in the compounding hassles of daily existence, those inexcusable responsibilities that pry into one’s life like tendrils of ivy, sinking into soft wood, gradually constricting –  inextricably.  That is, until she discovered, or perhaps was lead to the charge of the great swami of the kitchen; the Imam Hapsut.  She explained, that through the guidance of Hapsut, she had discovered, not only the secrets of culinary puissance, but a freedom of being – a lightening of the soul.  Through her words I was struck by a sense of the benevolence and learning of this man, this mentor, of who’s existence just minutes ago I had been ignorant.  I asked her to elucidate the nature of the swami but she suggested I had better discover him on my own rather than pick his teachings from the distorted filter of language (1).  I gave her one of those queer looks one gives a presumptuous child or an old aunt who claims her spinach dip to be fat-free, and took down her directions to humor an old friend who’s company I dearly missed. 
That evening, before the satiating glow of the television, my wandering fingers – always acting with a mind of their own – discovered the directions, neatly folded in my coat pocket.  I took them out and, sweeping aside the consortium of malignant papers, folded magazines and general debris, smoothed them on the table.  Thus began my search for Hapsut.