Burning

She returned from Burning Man with news:
“on the first day the dust overwhelms you. On the second day you become one with the dust. On the third day you are the dust. On the fourth day you look for people to cover.”
She went on like this, including: “I lost my fear like I lost my virginity. It will never come back.”
I said: “Get thee to a nunnery.”
She said, “Yeah, whatever…you look kind of whacked, or are you just stoned?”
I was chopping an onion and was at that point where the spirit of the onion was driving a wet cloud of needles into my eyes. But I didn’t care, I loved it, I loved the needles.
“Clean my eyes with pain!” I screamed, and this got her attention, and she looked over and saw what I was doing.
“Oh. It’s the onion.” Then, “you know if you only breath through your nose and don’t open your mouth while you’re cutting it, you’ll be okay.” She got really close to me, latching her eyes to mine, then winked. “That’s the lesson of the onion.”