Tea with Her

The rain is pouring down, thundering on the metal roof of the shack.  Gazing with concern out of the fogged up window, the man watches the rain drops collect on the glass.  One by one they combine, till their weight suddenly pulls them down in urgent rivulets.  ‘She should be back by now’, he thinks to himself.

He doesn’t seem to notice as an airy whistle begins to sound.  As the whistle sharply rises to a shrill scream he shakes himself out of his thoughts.  Standing up with a groan, he feels his knees pop; this damp weather always spells achy days for him.  

“Damned rain” he mutters to no one.

The scream of the kettle dies to a whimper and then silence as it is removed from the stove, the steam escaping from the spout and the lid.  Two non-matching mugs are set on the scarred vinyl counter waiting to be filled with tea.  The man pours the water into the cup, and hesitates before filling the other cup that he had prepared with a sachet of tea.  After a moment he puts the kettle back down, leaving the second cup dry.

‘She’ll be back any minute, I’ll wait to pour though, she’ll want it hot as possible coming out of a downpour like this’ he thinks.  She had gone to town before the rain came to purchase the necessities.  

Setting back down by the window he regards the vapour curling off the top of his tea.  It twists and curls, some vanishing, some falling back to the cup having failed to get the momentum to escape properly.  As the sachet steeps, the dark brown tea swirls to the bottom of the mug, resting on the bottom.  It reminds him of the awkward school dances when he was young, the boys and the girls too unsure of themselves to ask any of the others to follow to the dance floor, refusing to mingle out of an excess of self-awareness.

He bobbed the tea sachet up and down in the cup, agitating the liquid to a smooth golden brown; any separation between the water and the tea was forgotten.  After the tea had steeped long enough, the man removed the sachet, carefully squeezing it out and setting it on the table.  There were still another few cups of tea that could be squeezed out of that one later.  This was real tea, which was hard to come by these days.  Any tea that could be had was usually from some old stockpiles or was made of some locally grown mystery plant that made “tea”, since ships from across the sea were few and far between.  

Looking back out the window, the rain is coming down too heavy to see if anybody is approaching up the path until they would be practically at the gate.  As the man sips the tea it warms his body, taking away some of the ache in the joints, but it does nothing to soothe his growing anxiety.  He looks at her empty mug prepared to receive hot water and be filled with tea, and frowns.  Sipping again at his tea, it does nothing to lessen the concern evident in his brow.

With a sudden movement the man rose from his chair and retrieved a rubber poncho and a pair of heavy boots.  Only pausing to open the iron doors of the stove to add a piece of firewood, he disappeared out the door.

As he stepped outside he felt the darkness of what should have been the afternoon.  The thick rain clouds looming above were swollen and dark; the rain fell heavy in large, earth-pounding drops.  

As he closed the gate to the yard behind him, he glanced back at their shack.  It was a small clapboard structure with patches applied over the years.  Thin puffs of smoke came from the stove pipe poking out of the roof, and the warm glow of electro-chemical light illuminated the windows.  It was inviting, but it looked so empty.

With that he turned his back to the shack and trudged down the path through the mud.  The town was only a half mile down the main road, he thought, if he was going to find her it would be on the way there.

The mud clung to his boots like glue, making them heavy and awkward.  The treads quickly filled up and lost any pretence of traction with the rain-rutted pathway.  Picking his way carefully, the pathway took a final steep plunge before meeting the main roadway.  Finally the mud beneath his feet got the best of him and sent him flying down the path like a water slide from his youth.  A flash of white pain seared across his back as a gnarled root slammed into the small of his back.  He flipped and slammed to the roadway, splatting in the mud with the dignity of a log.

He lay there for a minute trying to get his breath back.  Feeling the mud squelch around him he took a mental inventory of his body, everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken.  His knees groaned as he stood up, stretching out in a vain attempt to shed the ache from the fall.

The road was a wide dirt track with spots of gravel, random patches of ancient asphalt were all that indicated it had once been anything more.  Passing a reddish brown hulk of a ruined car, a mangy racoon peered out as it sheltered from the rain, eyeing him with wariness infused with curiosity.

Keeping his head down to let the hood keep the rain out of his face, and hunched over from the ache of his fall and a vain attempt to try and stay warm against the chill of the afternoon, he trudged his way toward the town.  The difficulties helped to lessen the worry from his mind as he focused on his bruises and chills, instead of why she was so late to be back.

His mind began to wander back to his warm shack with the fire in the stove and hot tea.  He decided to himself that he had definitely earned another cup of the good tea when he returned.  The mug he had left on the counter with the tea sachet prepared for her came back to his mind, and with that he began to think of her again.

He almost walked off the edge of the road while he was lost in his thoughts.  Snapping his head up and looking around, he saw that part of the road had apparently slid down the hill and crashed into the brush below, presumably due to the torrential rain.  The broken edge of the road was jagged and a stream of water flowed down the scar the slide had cut into the hillside.  

Laying in the mud near the missing piece of road he noticed a basket.  Her basket.  He crouched down to inspect it, finding spilled mushrooms being pounded by the rain into the road.  Peering down at the scar on the hill side an icy clamp seizes his chest.  The rain is too thick to get a good look at the bottom, but he knows what he will find at the bottom.

He hastily scrambled over the edge of the road, dropping down to the soft slope.  Picking his way down the hill, as fast as he dared, he approached a slice of asphalt from above.  

With heavy breaths he looked around, and did not see what he had expected to find.  He felt the clamp loosen a little and at the same time cursed himself for immediately going down the hill; it was not going to be easy to get back up, he thought.  He looked around, looking for an easier path to the road, and noticed the tracks of something that had drug its way through the mud and beat a path through the brush.  Broken branches and a sideways scrape of mud spoke of someone that had done this with a large degree of difficulty.

Forcing the brush aside, the man set off following the track, pausing every few feet to see if he could make out the trail.  With a final push through he came into a small clearing; tufts of tall grass grew in bunches, polka-dotting through the mud and rocks.  A muddy figure was motionless on the ground, barely distinguishable from the mud in which it lay.

Rushing over, he turned her over.  Relief washed over him as her eyelids fluttered briefly.  Mud was caked in her blonde hair, hiding it’s usually vibrant hue.  She mumbled fitfully incoherent words.  

The man stroking her cheek spoke, “Be still, I’ll get you home”.

As if in response, she quieted and lay breathing softly.

Looking down he noticed her leg was stuck out at an unnatural angle.  “That explains why you were dragging yourself”, he said to himself.  The hill above was less steep than the one he had come down, but the road still rose at a sharp angle near the top.  It was no use trying to find a better spot though, he knew, this was going to be the way to go.

Taking off his poncho, he tenderly wrapped her in it, and fastened the ends with a quick knot to tie the corners together.  Carefully lifting her up, he placed her over his shoulders like a sack of grain and slowly began trudging up the hill.

The footholds were chosen carefully.  To slip and fall now risked turning a broken leg into an open wound, and an open wound was far too likely to become an infection.  He wanted to rush her home and to their warm bed and a hot cup of tea, but he steeled himself against that urge.  Climbing the hill step by step his knees were screaming, and his bruised body felt the weight of her body, slight as it was.  Nearing the crest he misjudged a step and the mud under his boot betrayed him.  He quickly fell to his knee, a shock of searing pain jolted up his leg like lightning.  The stumble must have shifted her leg too, because she gave a painful moan before subsiding back to silence.

Cursing the mud, the rain, and his own clumsy feet he rose back up to his feet.  Without his poncho the rain drenched him to the bone, and the wind bit through his cotton shirt with sharp fangs.  His lungs were burning from the exertion of the climb.  Finally he crested over to the main road.  He paused for a moment to collect his bearings and his breath.  The ancient car with the racoon lurked in front of him.  Turning down the road he continued his slow, steady trek back home.

As he reached the small path that led to the shack the rain began to ease up.  The man didn’t notice this change in weather though.  His mind was filled with the pain in his body and worry for her.  It was only when he reached the gate that he looked around.  The rain had turned to a drizzle, the clouds still looming above with an unspoken threat to let loose again.

He stumbled through the door and as gently as he could with his fatigue, took her to the bed near the stove.  His body screamed at him to sit down and rest, which he ignored.  There were still things to attend to before he could allow himself to sit.

Opening the stove a few quiet flames and embers were all that remained of the fire he had left.  He grabbed two pieces of firewood to feed the stove, and placed the now cold kettle on top.  With care he unwrapped his poncho from her, and gently removed her wet clothes, cutting the pants away from her leg, and replaced them with her pajamas, dry and warm from being inside.  

With her warmth assured, he turned his attention to her leg.  A deep purple bruise wrapped around the leg, which was resting on the bed at the wrong angle.  With a small measure of relief he found that the bone had not ruptured the skin; the spectre of infection departed his mind.  Taking two dowels from a chair and a strip of fabric cut from a shirt, he placed the splint on her leg.  Gritting his teeth he straightened her leg, and bound it firm to the splint.  The pain jolted her up for a moment with a yelp, before she closed her eyes again.

Wetting a rag, he tenderly cleaned the mud from her hair as best he could.  Finally content that she was ok, he sat back down to his seat by the window.

The rain had ceased altogether, no longer beating its fists on the metal roof.  The only sounds he could hear now was the cheerful crackle of the stove as it warmed the kettle, and the gentle sound of her breathing.  The clouds were no less cranky than they had been, even if their fit was over.  The sun now lay low enough to the horizon to peer out from beyond the clouds, casting the rain-battered ground outside in a hazy, golden light.

The kettle hot once again, gave its initially hesitant scream.  As he removed the kettle, she stirred and opened her eyes.

“You’re okay,” he said.

“What happened?”

“You took a fall, but I found you.”

She tried to sit up, but gasped in pain.

“Easy, your leg is broken, but I’ll take care of you.”

He poured the hot water in the mug he had prepared for her, and prepared himself a mug as well with the tea he had saved from before.  The tea from the sachet swirled around in the mug, turning the water golden brown.

“I was getting you some mushrooms from town.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” he replied.

She laid her head back on the pillow and sighed.  Grabbing an extra pillow, he helped her to prop her up and gave her the tea.  So they sat and drank their tea together, feeling the warmth spread to their bones.  The tea melted away the day, leaving only their world together in the shack.  In their home.  Nothing else mattered.