TEA FOR ONE OR TWO

TEA FOR ONE OR TWO

I grew up watching a lot of movies and I knew that stories based on true events were mostly made up for entertainment, so I had no reason to believe them. Since they were entertaining I liked watching them anyway. Movies like The Amityville horror, Carrie and so on. They made me laugh at those who thought the events were real and I never took them seriously, at least not until one day I realized that I was not alone, and it was not just me .... living with me.

I was having my morning cup of tea as I usually did every day before I left for work. I was sitting at my little table in my little apartment. I had just about finished with my first cup and was about to get up and to have another. Another one of my self-made flavored teas that was in my mind, the talk of my neighbors, because one cup, was never going to be enough. My tea had to be the best because I was the best.

As I rose from the table, I heard somebody loud and clear shout the word… "NO!" I turned around towards the living room where it sounded like it had come from, the person shouting had to be near me but no one else was in the apartment. I laughed when I confirmed this after turning and seeing no one. That’s when I thought to myself “I hope nobody I know was about to take a beating or get murdered in one of the apartments above me .”

I admit that it startled me at first because like I said, it sounded clear and close. but I figured between my thin apartment walls and the usually loud boisterous guy upstairs, it was probably just him shouting at his kids again.

I continued towards my kitchen stove which was only a few feet away from the table I was sitting at. As always, I stopped in front of the mirror that was on the closest door to make sure that my well-kept hair, looked well kept. Ok I was vain, but this was my life… I thought.

As expected, every strand as usual was in place. Work was where I was heading this morning and I always looked good for work. I never cared about who agreed or didn’t agree no with my dress style, I knew I was dressed to kill. As I took one more look in the mirror, I again heard loud and clear... "No”..

It was what I saw that caused shock and fear to suddenly go through every bone in my body with a rush that almost knocked me backwards. I damn near fainted ..My lips right before my very eyes had involuntarily moved and I was able to read my own lips as they formed the word connected to the shout ,,, “No!”

The first thought my mind quickly came up with most likely was a mind defense to keep my sanity,. It was that the man upstairs who hated me, who I had argued with on many occasions about the noise, had somehow gotten into my apartment. Somehow, he must have put some hallucinate drug in my precious tea out of pure hate and jealously over my looks.

This thought could have only have stemmed from the night I had dreamed that he had done that and because I knew the man didn’t like that his wife had on occasion, innocently had a cup tea with me before I left for work, after she had dropped her kids off at school. But he couldn’t have gotten into my apartment with all these locks on my door and windows. So, what I saw in the mirror had to be an illusion or like in those movies I laughed at, some force or someone within me was finally coming out.

I should have been laughing at my own explanation knowing that watching those kinds of movies can make you think what I was thinking. But the problem was that I knew that I had seen what I had seen.

I found myself walking toward the teapot again while all kinds of stuff swirled in my head as I started to feel like I really wasn’t me., I could feel some kind of difference coming over me. Now I was sure that somehow. he or whatever was taking over and It was happening quickly with not a damn thing I could do about it.

I realized after I, him or us reached the cabinet over the stove, that I wasn’t going to get another cup of my fine tea. I or whoever reached and grabbed coffee. I never drank coffee; it was only around for visitors. This was another reason I felt and knew that this was the beginning of the end of me, the me the world knew.

I probably will never know how or why this has happened to me at this moment and at this time in my life at the age of 45 but I knew then and there that the voicewas really coming from within me. Not words out loud but still loud and clear within my head and it told me that together we will become one, and I would be the one that would be no more.

There is no doubt that whatever this was, it had been waiting in my mind and body for this time to come. He had to know that my mind and body had been weakened from medication, the pressure of my job and the pressure of just being me. I know now that I should have kept those appointments with the psychologist, maybe the doctor could have helped me, stay me.

Still Its strange that the final thoughts of mine were not about the conflict within or the hostile takeover of me during my morning cup of tea. Nor were they about me watching myself go upstairs and change into clothes I would never have worn to work. It was about knowing that I’ll never ever enjoy another cup of my wonderful tea again and neither would those who had the pleasure of tasting it.

If I must guess, I would have to believe that from now on, they will be trying and tasting some good neighborly coffee instead of tea, because I don’t feel or think that things will ever be the same, because I’ll never be me again.