Nefarious Tea

Now hear me out. I am not prone to bouts of hallucinogenic insanity. Anxiety? Sure. Depressive episode? Who hasn’t been there? But I can tell you with absolute certainty that what I see has always been in true and proper alignment with reality. So please..tell me how I seem to be standing on an actual cloud.

I was at home. Mere breaths ago I was at home. And now Im standing…here. Clouds stream and flow like some fantasy river. The edges singed with pink, orange and yellow as light streams in from what can only be the earth below. The clouds stretch on, limitless, uninterrupted in their flow except for the spot where I – and she stand.

She almost blends right in. Her short hair curls and waves away from her face in the same pattern as the clouds, flowing in the same breeze that only I seem unaffected by. Her slight frame is drowning in oversized clothes. A polka-dot jumper is rolled at the sleeves where she wrings her hands compulsively. Yellow corduroy trousers are barely held up by a green belt. As I meet her anxious eyes, her hand darts sharply up and down, with a wave that lasts a mere millisecond. Her face transforms into a wide smile as she drifts closer to me.

“Fancy meetin’ you ‘ere!” She says with an over familiar soft elbow nudge. Her voice shocks me out of shock. I look down at her warm brown eyes. She looks too real. All at once an extension of this surreal place. Yet she is too substantial to fit in this delicate scene.

“Where is here exactly? I was home. I – I was home and I was-“

“Sketchin’”

“…yes.” Too real. Her eyes flicker down to my right and I follow her gaze to see that I am holding my little black sketchbook. My dream book. It’s hanging open and the pages flutter weakly along with the clouds.

“They’re lovely. Your drawin’s. I thought I did quite a good job…accurate y’know. But if you don’t like it I could make some changes.”

I am too flabbergasted to answer my strange companion. I stare blankly down at my sketchbook and press my fingertips to the page. It’s a recent sketch. An airplane window looking out upon sunset stained clouds. At these sunset stained clouds.

She leans forward and turns her head awkwardly up to look into my bemused expression. The clouds shimmer like waves around her.

“D’you like it?”

“I…pictured a plane.”

“Yeaaah but it’s better this way innit?” She smiles.

“I don’t understand.” Am I dead? “Am I dead?”

She shrieks with laughter. She bends and hold her knees, wiping away tears, laughing uninhibited like they do in childrens movies. She stops with a suddenness that is both unnerving and hilarious.

“Dead?! You! You’re mad you are.” She reaches out and pinches the fluttering pages at random. “Let’s try a new one shall we?”

The air is sucked from my lungs. A flash of light so bright it leaves spots in my eyes. My feet are slammed into a solid warm surface.

Sand.

I suck in precious air and my eyes adjust to find myself standing alone on a white sand beach. A warm breeze whispers across my skin and through the tall palms that stretch towards the azure sky. The most beautiful blue water caresses the shore. She’s out there, splashing doplets of crystal water up around her. She stands waist deep, her water logged clothes hanging heavily around her as she beams at me. I begin to wonder if something nefarious made its way into my evening tea.

“Come on then!” She shouts across the waves at me. “Come have a dip!”

The water glitters invitingly. May as well lean into this. I walk forwards and the waves flow up around my feet. Doubt is driven from my mind. The cool clear water washes away all hesitation and I bound into the waves, diving head first into the turquoise tide. I surface and feel the warm sun and gentle breeze on my face. This water feels like a piece of my soul, a part of the deepest aches in my heart.

“You like it.” She is floating lightly on her back before me, bobbing up and down with the waves. “I knew you would like it.” Her voice is a content sigh as she drifts slowly past, too light on the surface for the heavy clothes that should be dragging her down.

“If only this was real life.” I close my eyes as a vine of reality creeps into my brain, siphoning off the happiness that had just filled me.

“whatchu mean real life?” Her voice is too close. I open my eyes and find her standing inches from me. Her expression can only be described as heartbroken. Her eyes are open so wide they look unlikely to ever be able to close again.

“I mean..real life. My real life. Instead of bills, debt and two jobs…I wish I could be here. Really here. Whatever this strange fever dream is it will end and I’ll have to go back to that.” My feet find the sandy floor as reality comes back to me. The reality that this is some oddly fulfilling illusion. The waves lap gently at my sides as though they are trying to soothe the worry that rolls off of me. The little black book is nudging against my arm, refusing to let me distance myself from the dreams.

“This is real! You created it! It’s all as real as me standin’ here in front of you!” Her brow furrows with desperation as she stares at me. She picks up the book when I don’t and brandishes it, dripping between us. “I’ll show you what’s real.” She flips maniacally through the pages and thrusts it into my hands. A rare written entry faces me. The ink bleeds slowly across the wet pages.

“This is what you want? This is what will solve it all?” Suddenly the pages bulge. Money is bursting from the bindings. Bills of all sizes. “Go on then take it! Take it all if that’s what’s real to you!”

The money pours into the water around us. Concentric circles fill out as water is replaced by paper notes. I stagger back, truly afraid for the first time as she reaches towards me.

“You could be happy here.” Her whispered voice blends into the ruffling of the multitudes of money still filling our space. “Let me show you.” She touches the pages of the book bursting between us.

Everything slips away in a flash of bright light. Scenes materialize before me for mere seconds before they are incinerated in the light and replaced anew. FLASH. The twinkling lights of Paris. FLASH. A windy cliffside, the ocean roaring below us. FLASH. A quiet train chugs through white mountains. FLASH. Sunlight streams through the trees. FLASH-a whistling kettle-FLASH-sun-FLASH-sky-FLASH-day-FLASH-night-

I scream, but hear no sound. “Stop. STOP IT! It’s not real! You’re not real!”

A small gasp in absolute silence. The air stills around me. I hear only my ragged breathing. I open my eyes. Clouds again.

Tear brim her soft eyes. “I am real.” Her lower lip trembles. “I AM REAL!” Tears spill down her face. “Its you not livin’ real life. What’s the point of all that? All that sadness. All that nothingness. Your dreams are right here and you’re pushin’ ‘em away!” Her voice rises with each word.

“Put me back home. Please.” I gasp, afraid and confused.

She steps back mechanically. The clouds begin to drift up. She looks down, tears splashing on her hands as the clouds rise up and swallow them. Her edges seem to shimmer and she finally looks delicate enough to fit the scene. The clouds are covering my waist, my shoulders, my neck.

“I only wanted you to live them. All those dreams.” Her voice is far away. The clouds wash over us, covering my eyes.

…wait.

I feel warmth wrapped around my shoulders. My blanket. My bed. My real apartment, lit only by the dancing light of a burning candle. My hands cradle the black book to my chest. A soft sob bursts through my lips. I stand and drop the book running my hands through my hair.

Damp…salty?

The candlelight glimmers against something gold. Sitting out of place in the middle of my limited floorspace is a small, golden chest. I shakily open the unlocked top. My breath catches and my heart beats unevenly as I flip through neat stacks of money sitting atop a thin dusting of white sand. Bills sorted into piles by the thousand. Twenty Thousand dollars. Enough to cover my school debt and more. “Take it all if that’s what real to you!” She echoes through the silence of my one room apartment. I sit dumbfounded as my mind races through possibilities.

Time passes without meaning. The sun rises. The rays warm my bare legs. I cannot banish the thoughts that scream that I have felt a warmer sun. A purer sun.

I am outside walking. The bell jingles too quiet over the library door as I rush inside. I am aware of a man watching me as I pull stacks of my favourite novels from the shelves. These used to feel like real worlds to me, real escapes from reality. As real as fantasy could be…up until…

“Anything I can help you find darling?” He has a warm voice. But he sounds too far away. I am too far away. I realize I have been staring blankly for too long.

“Why do they always go back home?”

He definitey looks worried now.

“I mean..the books. They find fantasy worlds of adventure and beauty and yet…they always go home at the end. Why do they always go home?”

“Well..the fantasy isn’t real. They can take what they learn there and bring it home. For real change.”

“What if home can’t be changed? Not enough. What if it will never feel like home in the right way? What if nobody is waiting for them and they have nobody to help?”

He hesitates.

“…Im sorry.”

I hand him the stacks unsteadily and stride out of the place.

The air outside is too thin.

I am home too quickly. I walk the walls of my apartment slowly. Touching the shelves, the plants, the photographs. They feel nothing of me and I do not feel them. I run my hands, my arms under the kitchen faucet. This water feels nothing for me. My world has not changed. But that light. I adjusted to that light. Now that it's gone…this apartment is too dark. The things are changed to me. A wave a assuredness washes over me. I feel certain.

I sit in an old chair in the centre of the room. The little black book of dreams in my hands. The golden chest lies in a corner, forgotten. Inconsequential. I turn the pages slowly, intentionally.

A breeze blows by, lifting my hair and letting it dance and sway around me. The grass sways too, long and soft against my legs. I stand firmly in a field of wildflowers in every colour, bordered by tall quiet trees, all tucked in by a blanket of soft clouds.

She’s standing here, holding a cup of tea. Steam rises from the porcelain cup and curves around her face before joining the breeze.

“I thought you’d like this one.” She sits and the flowers bend towards her, seeking her sunlight.

I walk forwards and the flowers bend to me too.

“You can stay y’know. I’d like if you stayed.”

She smiles, too wide as always and stretches one hand out to me.

“What if it’s not real?” I ask gently. I hope she can tell.

Her hand remains patiently outstretched.

“Would you be any less happy if it wasn’t?”

I am positive I wouldn’t be. I reach out and take her hand.