Hotter Tea Than Is

The day was clear; bright and clear and fresh. Which was little she could say for her head. Still, regardless, the birds tweeted in the air and the sun demanded to shine. She sat on a chair outside, leaning forward with her chin resting on her knees, feeling the sun beat against her neck. She swatted at it, wishing for a moment her brown curls didn’t just bob around her head.

“It’s too hot,” she mumbled, and sat up straight. It was time, she thought, for a cup of tea, and she decided in a moment she would move to make one. There was no rush, the day would go on regardless of whether she had her morning tea or not. In a moment she would find the momentum to leave the sun.

“You need more effort,” she said softly, before throwing her head into a frenzy. She had to stop talking to herself like that, like there was someone else in her other than herself. There was just her, and she needed to remember that.

“I need more effort,” she corrected herself. And it was correcting herself, not anyone else.

“I need to stop this.” And she shook her head, and got up to make her tea before she let herself linger in her racing thoughts.

They were just that in her head, racing thoughts; tumbling, jumbling, bumbling. She couldn’t control half of the thoughts most of the time, unable to stop what she did not want to think.

She grabbed the lighter and turned the gas on at the stove. Gas could hurt someone unknowingly. In the cupboard on the top shelf the tea cups. They’d easily shatter if bumped. She moved her hand past the cup with a chip, and the one that had been bought at the junk store and the one that had belong to a dead aunt. Tea bag in chosen cup she waited. The jug could be forgotten. It whistled and she poured. It’d be hot for a child. She grabbed the milk from the fridge and poured slowly. Milk goes off quickly. The tea bag was dropped into the bin and she sighed. Tea bags could be dangerous things for children who don’t know, for people who don’t know, for those who do know.

She worried much because of these thoughts. Not about herself, she knew she could stay safe from off milk, but for others, those who didn’t realise the milk had spoilt or that there was a chip in their cup. Every corner there was something dangerous, something ready to cause pain, something to make someone cry.

She took her tea outside and returned to the chair. She wouldn’t be there for long she knew, the sun vexed her when it got too hot. But she wanted the air.

She didn’t want to think about these things. They slipped in, uncontrollably and she couldn’t do anything but think them.

“Stop it,” she muttered at the slip of thoughts about ants. She brought her knees up onto the chair and with one hand held them from falling.

The tea, made safely, was warm to match the sun, but she could never know when there would be a tea-making disaster, and the threats of the sun were lively.

On something like a whim she got up and went inside, unable to sit there any longer. She placed herself in front of the TV but didn’t turn it on. There were too many people, too many situations, too much to worry about. She hadn’t watched the news in a long time.

“I don’t miss it,” she said, and she didn’t. She missed TV though, but knew right now, things weren’t good in her head. Mornings were normally the easiest, but it was bad today, worse than normal.

“Too bad,” she murmured, and took a swig of tea.

Usually she could mull around quite easily with her thoughts, them only becoming exasperatingly twisting towards the night. She supposed they built up throughout the day; the morning was only the foundation whilst the night was the peak.

“Ah well,” she said, straight and strong. It was how many things went for her in the end; ah well, what’s there to do. For the rest of the day she would amble around, and perhaps hear the birds outside, or take a breath of air, and she would be restless in her thoughts; twisting, turning, tumbling, but that’s just how it was. One bright, clear, fresh day at a time.