The previous two days brought the weather. Fog gave way to clouds, gave way to rain, and rain to thunderstorm. It all abated in the early hours this morning. The rising sun chased out all the fat, low hanging clouds from the sky. Now a layer of flocculent, cirrocumulus clouds floats high above; it’ll be warm and sunny, at least for a few more days.
After a hard rain feeds the ferns, the fen the whole swamp glows with life. Cool mornings like this are still so humid you can slice through the air with a knife like a fluffy tiramisu. Despite the temperature, clothes stick to your skin as moisture in the air quickly saturates any surface it can condense onto.
The broad leaves of monstera plants slowly winding their way up the trees sit perfectly still in the thick air, vibrant and essential green- the color of life. The bog smells of peat, petrichor, and ozone. Posses of diminutive brown birds ferret about and devour any worm wiggling in the patches of mud that poke out of the swamp, and long legged egrets coil their thin necks wading through the water in search of juicy fish.
Afternoon comes, the golden hour. Sunlight gilds the wetlands. The post-storm feeding frenzy has ended. The frogs and bugs in the trees begin their symphony, their revel to the locals that spend the night hours awake. It’s time to hunt.
A single amber shaft of sunlight illuminates a wooden rowboat on the water. Dark hands, skin the color of honey dip the oars into the water slowly. The pilot faces the stern of the boat and occasionally looks over her shoulder as the craft glides a path through the lily pads to my dock. She ties the boat to a rusty cleat and climbs ashore, careful to avoid splashing into the silty water.
Inside the teashop, on her cozy pillow against the wall, the old dog wakes up and sniffs the air. Lazily she stands and stretches her legs. Her tail wags slowly back and forth as she trots to the mudroom to greet the visitor. She stands at the door expectantly waiting for it to open.
“Well hello there, aren’t you a precious little lady?” says the girl after stepping in and squatting down to be face to face with the dog. “Did I just wake you up from a nap?” The dog pushes herself into the girls arms; the frequency of her tail wagging increases.
“She doesn’t give half a warm welcome to most guests,” I say, poking my head around the corner. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you two had met before.”
“Maybe she just likes the way I smell. I dunno, I was just kneading some buttery dough before I came here.” She sniffed her hands. Henna tattoo drawings wrapped around and weaved from her fingertips disappearing into the short sleeves of her shirt. “Or maybe not, I suppose. Sometimes I just have that effect on animals. They like me.” She scratched the dog’s haunches. “And who wouldn’t love a sweet old gal like this one right here? Nobody, that’s who.”
I watched on bemused.
“Excuse me, I got carried away,” she said. Her cheeks turned a shade pinker. Dark hair sat in loose curls down to her shoulders, against the green canvas of her flour dusted apron. Her sheepish grin, like a child caught stealing cookies shone like brilliant beams of light into the blue sky as white clouds drift in front of the afternoon sun. “By the way, I only stopped in to ask where am I? I was just in my bakery, about to throw in a batch of scones. Next I knew, I was on that little rowboat. Is this a dream?”
I nodded at the shoe rack. “Take off your shoes and step inside. It’s kinda like a dream. Will you have some tea with me? Come in and make yourself at home. Do you know where you’re headed?”
“I don’t know, I guess. Back to work. Tea does sound delightful, and your teahouse does look quite cozy,” she said, craning her neck to look inside. She sat on the bench and pulled off her boots. “Will you sit with us while we have our tea?” she asked the dog.
I came to the table where she and the old hound shared a cushion with a bucket of unlit coal and some rainwater I’d collected and filtered the day before.
Just a moment later, steam drifted from the nozzle of the heavy iron kettle. The girl’s green eyes were spellbound by the heavy, multicolored geode on the scared wooden table. Sharp quartz crystals on the cut face made the illusion of a deep and glittering cave. She imagined herself the size of a flea, exploring the cave, crawling over the monolithic translucent stones, the sense of discovery in every step as she made her way to the back of the cave.
I placed two jars in front of her. One stuffed with dried giant puffballs and the other with a parchment wrapped bundle of kawakawa leaves.
The thump of the jars on the table snapped her back to reality. She furtively placed the rock back where she found it on the table.
She uncorked the first and pressed her nose into it. Her body rose as she pushed out her ribs to breathe the scent in. “Ooh, I like that. Earthy, but mild. Is it a mushroom?”
I nodded.
“I’ve got to get my head on straight and find my way back to my shop. That dough will overproof and the whole batch will be trash. In my experience, mushroom tea isn’t suited for going to work.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” I assured her.
She twisted off the cap on the jar of kawakawa and took another deep smell. “I’ve had this stuff before. It was quite enjoyable, but…” she trailed off.
“But?”
“Well, I was just looking at this, and wondered if we could try making tea from it,” she said, her fingers wrapping around the gemstone.
“Make tea with this?” I asked. “I’ve never tried, but there’s no harm in it I suppose. How do you think we should go about it? Boiling water won’t really dissolve it or anything, right?”
“Make it just like regular tea. That’s why you kept it on the table I assumed.”
“The customer is always right” I said, and went searching for a larger, sturdier teapot. The stone was too large for the delicate gaiwan I had prepared.
I washed the stone once with hot water and discarded the runoff. Next, we let the stone steep, and I poured more boiling water over the pot periodically to keep it warm. After the last grain of sand fell from my five minute hour glass, I split the brew into a cup for each of us.
“If nothing else, this will totally be high in minerals.” she said, pausing for a laughter that never came. “Anyway, I don’t get enough electrolytes or iron.”
“Do you eat meat? It can be difficult to get iron if you’re vegetarian.” I said.
“I do occasionally, but most of my iron comes from dark greens and beans. That kinda stuff.” She held her teacup in two hands and raised it in my direction. “To our health,” she said and took a sip. A trail of the liquor rolled down her cheek.
“So you’re lost? Or not sure where you are? Or you think this is a dream?” I asked, refilling her cup.
“Do I get to pick which one of the questions I’m answering?” She said smirking at me. “I think I’m lost. Like I mentioned earlier, I was just kneading dough. I don’t remember anything between then and being in the rowboat.” She reached for her teacup. “Not that I mind. It’s just so welcoming here. These Japanese mats on the floor and the low tables are great. It feels very… lived in.” She quickly drained the second bowl of tea and I began steeping another pot. “Told ya this gemstone would make a good drink.”
“You weren’t wrong. Can you tell me about your henna tattoos?” I asked.
“These vines represent life, growth.” she said, tracing them with the tip of her finger. “Like the vines and plants out the window. Weathering storms, spending each day reaching for the sun. Plants make me happy.” She stuck out her arms and inspected. “I don’t know about this mandala. I was just doodling it and sort of zoned out, but I really like it though.”
“That stuff washes out over time, right? If you draw a mandala wrong, it’s not like a big ‘No Ragrats’ tattoo on your chest or something.”
“Right, they fade in a couple weeks.” she confirmed.
“Do you have any?” I asked.
“What, real tattoos? No,” she replied confused.
“Regrets,” I clarified.
She nearly spit out her mouthful of tea. “Wow you really know how to have a conversation. Just say exactly what’s on your mind why don’t ya?” she said scolding me.
“Well it’s just me and the dog out here 90% of the time, and she isn’t great at conversation, sorry girl, but it’s true.” I said in my defense.
“True. But she is a big sweetie, aren’t ya?” She began running her fingers through the dog’s fur.
I looked on. “So, regrets? I’m not gonna let you leave me hanging.”
“I don’t know you or where I am or how to get back to my shop. Usually I’d tell someone they’re being rude if they press me like this, but if you insist.
“Yea. I have regrets. People our age always say YOLO before taking a risk, right? Or you hear it at bars as a joke before taking a shot. We all have social media posts saying ‘live with no regrets’. I think our generation saw how our parents lived: playing it safe, going to college back when it was affordable, buying a house back when you could get a loan for it and the market wasn’t crazy. They told us that was the dream, and that they were living it. Meanwhile, popular culture sold beauty and insecurity and glamour in new ways and pumped that shit into every second of every day with the internet. Pressures from every direction and small chemical imbalances in my brain conspire against me at all times, pushing me away from other people- from my community, from my friends, from my family, and keep me perpetually convinced that what I want is always that next thing. I’m a prisoner to my own desires. I desire beauty and to be beautiful, to love and be loved, to make and appreciate art and have freedom and security and I’m made to believe all that only exist as things I can go out and buy. I don’t regret wanting to laugh or create or make love or dance. I regret never being fully awake or fully aware that to live now is to be sleep walking and even after coming to this realization, you can’t really escape it. I regret allowing myself to be marketed to. I regret not building power against the machine. I regret not knowing my neighbors name in the fucking city I live in.” She stopped and breathed. “Oh my god, I’m dead, aren’t I?”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’ve found it’s best to let guests come to the conclusion naturally.” I said shrugging. “But hey, at least this time you really escaped the matrix, so you’ve got that going for you.”
“Yea, I guess I do.” She said, staring at the steam twirling from the neck of the kettle in a narrow rod of light. Tears swelled in the lower halves of her eyes.
We sat like that for a while, steeping bowls of the quartz crystal tea and watching birds out the window. The girl mindlessly caressed the sleeping dog.
“Well, you’ve aired out your regrets. Got anything else weighing down your immortal soul?” I asked.
“You really need to work on how you talk to your visitors,” she said. “But yea. I hid something from someone, thinking it would keep them from getting hurt. I carry the pain wherever I go, like the painting of the handsome guy in that old book.”
“Do tell.” I prodded.
“I’ve never told this to another soul. Not anyone. I guess this is my last chance?” She started. “I’d been living with a boyfriend for some months. We were together for a year or two at that point. He was my first.” At this, she smiled. “His mom died on a Monday morning, and he left almost immediately to be with his family. On that same day, my new chem lab partner sent me a private message online. It was flirty, but he invited me to a lecture with a famous scientist. I told him I’d go with him, and his reply was ‘wear a dress’. At first, I couldn’t tell if he was gay or fucking with me or just a total creep.”
“I feel like I could make an educated guess.” I interjected.
She continued through the interruption. “I had only one dress in my closet- this bright yellow, strapless thing that hardly came down to my thighs. I put it on and he picked me up. We went to the lecture. The speaker was so old he could hardly stand and talk for forty five minutes. He spoke about human evolution and the various species of hominids that existed in the last million years.”
“Every time he said the word ‘Australopithecus’ it sounded like that cartoon chicken Foghorn Leghorn,” she said, laughing.
“My lab partner didn’t know I wasn’t single. He put his hand on my leg during the talk, and I didn’t stop him. When he drove me home that night, he invited himself in, and I didn’t stop him.” Here she paused and pushed her lips together, her eyes looking down at the table.
“The next morning I emailed my professor and asked to be moved to a different lab class and just went on pretending like nothing ever happened. The boyfriend and I broke up a few months later over something unrelated and I got the fuck out of that apartment.” She finished.
“Damn, that’s pretty fucked up.” I said to her. “I’m sorry to hear about it. Does it help to finally get it off your chest?”
“Yea. I guess. I’ve carried it around for so long I’ve just learned to live with it,” she said meekly.
“People always say you have to forgive yourself. Don’t you hate that? It’s so convenient and easy to do or say, but when we hurt other people, what good does forgiving ourselves do?” I replied. “What we want ultimately is the person we hurt to heal; sometimes the only way for that to happen is far away from ourselves. You can’t sit around waiting for their forgiveness or whatever. It may never come. It may not be deserved.”
She thought for a moment and spoke. “I tried hiding the truth pretending it wasn’t real, or that it wasn’t me, or that I was under psychological distress and so it’s excusable. Nobody ever caught me, but the memory is haunting.” Her left eyebrow raised gently at the last word. “The only growth or healing I’ve ever had was accepting it was me, it was real. Too late now, I guess.”
The egg yolk sun hung low behind the trees dyeing the skies crimson and shrouding the high clouds in gold.
“I don’t know if there’s a guy over there with a big list of names forgiving people.” I said, walking her over to the pier. Sunlight reflected off the water. “Soon though you’re going to lie perfectly still with your eyes closed forever. In my experience, you’ve got to let go of everything from back where you came from. You’re gone from there, you only live on through the effect you had on other people.” I held her hand as she stepped down into the boat. “There’s no carrying that stuff with you to the place you’re going. Heaven is fully embracing the coming oblivion.”
“I can drink to that,” she said. “It was never going to be a clean break for me.” She reached in the pocket of her apron and pulled out a packet of dried lavender. “I usually pound this up and blend it into my honey and lemon muffins. It’s pretty good steeped in hot water though.”
I took it from her. “And I can drink to that.”
She lifted the oars and rowed into the sunlight.
Rules for the Last Tea Shop are available for free at https://springvillager.itch.io/last-tea-shop
Stuff Cam Wrote 