Tea

Warning Gore and horror.

​I think the bush is primordial. In the dark, damp pre dawn hours, it begins a meditative breath: a deep inhale followed by the low, earthy exhale of humming cicadas. This wave of sound swells in the belly until the kookaburras laugh at its peak, bursting the sound barrier, only to ebb back into a sultry, waiting silence—like the collective giggle of schoolgirls at the port racks after a handsome boy has passed. That loop repeats with the persistence of a practicing band until the first rays of the sun haunt the horizon's curtains, and the breathing shifts into the restless ensemble of Noisy Miners, Wrens, and Finches.

​This rhythm is my slow-burn Australian alarm; it strokes my hair like a mother’s hand. It draws the adult me smoothly from the covers, into my dressing gown, and toward a steaming cup of tea, until I am finally settled in the old wicker chair on the veranda—my seat at the midpoint of the sunrise.

​Then, the morning manoeuvres begin. It always starts with Bubbles hitched behind my apron strings, casting a frantic eye over his turf—a twitchy veteran in the fifth year of a "Mickey-bird" nightmare. He has the thousand-mile stare of a cat who has seen too much. He will scout, then he will scoot, and without fail, he will slip, slide, and tumble down the stairs in a flurry of misplaced anxiety. I closed him inside once, but he howled to the high heavens until the door is opened; the neighbourhood likely wanted to throttle both of us by the second chorus.

​The Mickey birds are ready, armed with smug grins and coordinated calls. Bubbles knows the drill. His opening move is always a dive for the rosemary bush—that thorny umbrella of a safe haven—where he issues his standard, entirely overconfident hiss. From his bunker, he has learned to gauge the enemy positions: the scouts on the telephone wire, the snipers on the fence, and the usual two on the veranda railings.

​The standoff always breaks the same way. The charge is fueled by the sudden, cacophonous squawk of bright yellow, intimidating throats. Spooked, Bubbles bolts. Like clockwork, one or two birds dive to snag a trophy tuft of tail-fur. He scrambles under the fence, relentlessly dive-bombed as he streaks across the road into the bush. Behind him, the gallery on the railings erupts in a raucous, feathered "Well done, lads!"

​Out here, early morning is my own private theatre, played out as I sip my tea. But today, I’m scratching my head. Yesterday’s ghost is still haunting me—go figure, I actually got up and went for a walk. I would never leave Bubbles to face the B-52s alone, yet I did.

​The strange part is the void. I lost two hours. I don’t have a clue why I went; I’ve never wanted to go for a morning walk, and I’ve never had to, seeing as I’ve never owned a dog. I remember the act of leaving and the act of returning, but the middle is a blank—a missing reel in the film.

​When I "came to," my shoes were wet. I was standing there in my old blue tracksuit—the one I know I thrifted at least two Christmases ago—with my front door wide open to the world. My tea sat cold and forgotten on the kitchen bench with milk in it. Milk? I never take milk. But the real glitch was the laundry: the machine was beeping a finished cycle. A hot water wash. I only ever wash in cold.

​It didn’t stop there. My bed was made with military-cornered sheets, the toilet smelled of imitation roses, and my whole day was out of whack. It wasn't just the schedule; it was the eerie, seamless continuity of everyone else—no one noticed, no one reacted. Not the cat, not the birds, not the neighbours; no one acted as if a single second had been misplaced. The world was running on its usual track, but I had somehow discontinued, left behind with a massive headache and a terrifying thought: Did I have an obsessive cleaning prowler? Did someone slip something in my juice the night before at the Pub? Thinking, really, I did leave it with friends on the bar when I went to the ladies. Anyway, today is a new day to be careful.

Suddenly, ​my hand wobbled, sending tea slopping over the rim. I managed to set the cup on the bench just as the pins and needles set in—and travelled up to my shoulder. I tried to brace my arm against my knee, but the contact only turned it tremor.

​“What the hell was in that drink?” I blurted out.

​The world began to fracture. Mickey-birds swarmed the veranda, attacking like white blood cells targeting a virus. I curled into myself, shielding my face from the squawking chaos while, on the fence line, crows lined. I tried to anchor myself. I tried to count.

​One. Two. Three. Four.

​The count was cut short by a bolt of agony that lanced through my entire skeleton. My back arched of its own accord, as I slide and stiffly fell onto the floorboards. I was no longer in control; I was merely a vessel for the sweat and the violent, rhythmic shaking. A piercing ring in my ears drowned out my own moaning. Then came the purge—a bitter, violent vomiting that left my face wet. My eyes stung. I wiped them, only to find my hands slick with blood.

​Then, a vacuum of silence.

​It’s over, I breathed, dragging myself to my haunches. But the quiet was a lie. A new sound started—the thin spin of a radio dial.

​Static. Incy wincy spider... Happy birthday... Tomorrow will be fine and dry...

The broadcast wasn't loud, but it was menacing. Then quiet. I could hear my breath. I looked out but the world had became a still-life painting: my neighbour’s laundry was a jagged board of frozen cloth; a patio pillow hung suspended in mid-air. Even Bubbles was a statue on the shimmering asphalt.

​Static. Incy wincy spider... I shrieked, "Not again" against the noise until—snap.

​Reality duplicated. Two chairs, two sun-bleached decks, two identical birds locked in a twin, frozen screech. I pulled myself up, my insides feeling as though they were being peeled away from the bone. A sickening lull followed—the deceptive quiet between contractions.

​Desperate to wash the copper taste from my mouth, I reached for the teacup. But as I tilted it, my stomach recoiled. I looked into the liquid and froze. Reflected there was a blue tracksuit collar and my own face—but it was pristine. The busted nose and swollen lip were gone. I hovered my hands over the rim, but they cast no shadow. They did not exist in the reflection.

​A deep, sickening pull radiated from my core. My bones and teeth vibrated like they might shatter. I gagged on a mouthful of slippery slime as something began to drag itself out of me—heavy, wet, and determined. A butterfly emerging from a jagged, limp, human cocoon.

​A blinding flare of white. A final, wet crack of bone. Amidst a chorus of tonal blends, I felt myself being dragged backward into dark, cold, deep water.

​Peace followed. From the depths, I looked up and saw her—upgrade. The glitch made flesh.