Spider Tea

 Spider Tea

Amidst the spiny fingers of fir trees, a house was nestled at the end of Fir Road, just before lost drivers turn around to re-enter civilization. The house is simple, with a single door and two windows that flank it with peeling stoicism. But inside, an old woman sits in a creaking chair stirring her daily cup of tea as a spider scurries across the table in a swift patter. Her hair is gray, like clouds before a storm and her drooping eyes still had a slice of youth hiding in the corners.

Every Saturday morning, precisely at ten to be exact, she drives her aged Oldsmobile that everyone referred to as the Boatsmobile. In her morning route, she hits the store in which I work. Cashiers scurry to act  busy while one is left to tend to her needs. She's not a horrible woman, but she is rather incorrigible. If we don't have her box of tea ready for her, she'll flutter around the store like a lost ghost seemingly cackling at all the workers until someone shoos her away with the power of a closed sign.

Being that I lost the round of paper-rock-scissors, I hopped over the only counter in the store and dashed to the breakfast section, where a sharp stack of teas waited. However, a thin rectangular void made my heart drop. The tea she would be demanding wasn't here. In a panic, I shook down other employees for any information to the missing tea. I knew I didn't have much longer before she'd haunt the store with her wrinkled skin.

I ran to the manager, explaining to her the situation. She confirmed that yes, we were out because I had apparently skipped that whole part. I muttered, "yes, we are" with my tongue firmly in my cheek as she scootered around the chasm of an office. She picked up a clipboard and tapped it with her hand. 

"A ha!" She announced. My fears were further crushed down my throat as I was told about the delivery truck that was late so someone had to leave to the other town to pick up the delivery.

"But, on a Saturday?" My voice was high as a co-workered snuck by the office and made a ghostly whooo! sound.

"They'll be here later, just tell her that."

That would be easy if she wasn't so scary, I thought. But, I nodded anyway and trotted to my doom of a day as the old woman patiently perched over the counter like an attentive bird, just waiting for something juicy to pick apart. I greeted her and oddly enough, she said hello back. That threw me off a bit as I coughed to clear my throat. Quietly, I informed her of the absent tea, and that it would be in later due to a delay that no doubt, affected others as well.

Again, a surprise.

She nodded and mumbled thank you to me. She then turned and shuffled out the door and to her Boatsmobile. I stared as the door shut behind her, almost as if it waved goodbye.

I thought of her all day. She wasn't normally that receptive to being told no. When the delivery truck came in, I made sure to set aside a single  box of tea just for her. I decided to take it to her, mostly because it was the right thing to do in a small town. As my shift ended, I rustled around my pocket to pay for the box of tea and I left the store and aimed for my truck in the quieter corner of the parking lot.

The drive to Fir Road was but a few minutes, so it really wasn't out of my way because everything was just a few minutes away. My truck passed various houses on the side of the road until steadily, the trees grew larger and the houses grew rarer. This would be the point in which lost drivers would click their tongues and slowly edge off the road to turn around. But I wasn't lost so I forged ahead in my slightly grumbly red truck. it was only late afternoon in the fall, but it felt like winter was approaching as the trees started to block the sun and the orange light faded into tufts of brightness.

A few more minutes on the path, and her house came into view. The fir trees around it seemed heavily protective, being as they were growing around it, like an embrace from Mother Nature. My truck stopped just off the side of her house, next to the Boatsmobile that seemed less menacing up close. I stepped on the cold, dirt path that was littered with brown leaves and dry branches that crunched like breakfast cereal. I slowly approached her front door, aged lines ran down it almost like it was in vogue at one point in time.

After a few raps upon the door and no answer, I sidled next to the wall and peered through the darkened windows that were slightly cloudy with age. I didn't see anything, so I knocked again. This time, I opened the door and peeked in.

"Hello? I'm sorry to intrude," I fumbled with the box of tea in my hand as I crept forward. "But I have your tea here, sorry for the delay."

As I walked past the front door, I stared to my immediate left. A table waited on a floor with peeling linoleum. On the table, was a steaming cup. I entered the kitchen and realized the old woman had been sitting at it the whole time. Her head was down and her arms unmoving, but I continued regardless.

"Tea," I chuckled as I sat the tea on the table. I don't know if I did it, but at that moment, her hand fell off the cup and it was then I realized she was dead. I stared at her, my eyes wide as I slowly inched forward.

But something in the cup made me jump back, fall against the wall and scurry from the house. Because, as I left, I heard something rumble that wasn't normal. Just as I shut the door behind me, I saw the shadowy legs of hundreds of creatures. Now what I saw in the cup was horrifying in a way that it shouldn't be. To be more specific, I hadn't noticed the marks of tiny bites on her body. I hadn't noticed that under the table, they crawled underneath, waiting for their snack that never came.

Because in the cup, was a handful of spiders taking a tealess bath.

Tiny Courageous

 Tiny Courageous

My mother was beautiful in way that was plain. She'd be lost in a crowd but you could feel her love just surround you. The same went for her voice; it wasn't particularly memorable or loud but it just was. My father called her his Quiet Strength. She had a name for me as well, but that's not important because I never thought it fit.

She only called me by that name when she would lay in her bed, the light from the lamp covering her sweaty head just barely. She' d hold my hand and whisper in my ear the secrets that God sent to her.

But I hated God.

He'd giver her visions that would send her into violent convulsions. She'd grasp at the air as her pupils would open for all the light it could gather. Her limbs would tighten and she looked like she'd die any second. All I could do was hug myself in the corner, trying to block the sound of my mother's labored breathing and my father's desperate, "it's okay baby, it's okay."

It wasn't okay.

God took my mother from me. And my father. I was always told that God's way was love of the highest, but this wasn't love. To throw a child into the world without the love of her family? I came to cry in the night as I wished for the moments that my mother would lie in bed telling me she loved me and that she'd be fine. And one day, the tears wouldn't even come. Either I just got lazy or whatever. The loss of my parents made something different inside of me.

I began to have convulsions too.

But these were on the inside; invisible earthquakes of strength. Soon, I became like my mother, silent but watching. The power she wielded over the world, that tiny amount of bravery coursed through my veins. She gave me her love, her will of God and it became my own amount of courage.

I met a man that my parents would've loved.

He was sweet and gentle and very caring. He never aged but I did. I laid on my deathbed, holding his trembling hand as his face was bitterly red with tears that would rub violently against his skin. His fingers would try to remain calm but I could tell they were losing the tiny amounts of happiness that remained. On my last day, I held my husband's hand and repeated to him the same line that my father would repeat to me.

"It's okay baby, it's okay." And it was, because just as I was to my mother, he was to me. His heart spoke to mine and I realized that while I huddled in the corner of my youth, the name my mother would call me in her darkest hours became what I was.

As I died, my husband's lips cautiously, lovingly and sadly formed the words that my ears took to be the sweetest thing I could hear. They were the exact words my mother would say to me before she fell asleep in the aftermath of her violent visions.

"Goodnight, my Tiny Courageous."

Mugshot

 I broke on the way here

I’m okay now, but fragile, my dear

Isn’t this the way it goes?

Of heated glances and frozen nos?

I’m no longer a mug

Quite something else

There’s purpose for me yet

You’ll find it, I know

I’m cracked but still here

I’m cracked

But still here

Starlight Heart

 It’s in a heart of darkness that love can be found.

The measure of a man is in deeds, of truthful utterances and a willingness to explore that darkness. That chasm of regret and despair shown only to few and known by even less. I’ve always been attracted to moonlight, it’s the truest light there is. Sun shows all but dark reveals even more. The way shadows play in fire lights of summer rains and winter nights.

It’s in these moments when I’m scared and alone, I see my breath vanish in puffs just as soon as they’re made. In a way, we are like that. Here for now gone moments later. But like all the best things in life, we don’t see. It’s in fact, the stars on a dark night that show the truth of life. Of existence born from fury and pain.

Just as whispers of breath sneak into the air, it becomes part of the wind, just as we are a part of the planet. That wind carries life, of pollen and particles of which seeds are born. That which is unseen becomes something far greater than us all.

When I feel scared and alone and I see the stars and heavens above I wonder . . . are you seeing the same? Do you feel what I feel? Does your chest rise and heave with mine as you sleep? We’re on the same plane, the same existence the same dimensional gateway. Forever together and sometimes, quite apart.

I have to remember that when I cannot see you. When I cannot feel you. When I cannot hear you. That my breath becomes the wind which finds its way to you. Like love itself, it cannot be seen. It cannot be stopped. The fragments that bind us all are invisible. Indescribable. Indestructible.

The dark is where warmth is felt. And it’s where I was born. It’s where I hope that daylight will come.

It’s in this heart of darkness that you are my sun.