THE MARGINAL SADNESS OF A NIGHT WITHOUT TEA
Ted sits at his counter-top and stares at the spot on his beige carpet. The spot that will never come out. He’ll have to tear up the floor in the entire room. It isn’t even in a place where he could cover it with the sofa. He passed out on his way to the bedroom. Idiot.
The doctor told him he couldn’t drink tea anymore. No more coffee, either, but coffee wasn’t really a problem for Ted. Losing tea, though. Devastating. A full half of his social interactions revolved around tea. Tea service. He’d gotten into it in college, halfway between an Anime movie club and a pig-tailed MPDG sophomore named Alice. He’d had tea three times a day, minimum, since.
They’d prescribed him painkillers. Serious shit, as far as Ted could tell. He wasn’t well versed in being under the influence. One pill didn’t do the trick. Two felt warm and fun, but when he bent over, his abdomen howled in pain. He found himself lying on the floor, his legs splayed open, head buried face down on a pillow, praying. Pill number three got him on his feet and to the refrigerator. A cold glass of water. He collapsed onto the carpet four steps off the linoleum floor and, during the course of the night, passed three stones that looked like slivers of glass. Along with them came a mixture of blood and urine. His corduroys were no match for the burst dam. He woke up on fire, his body having finally given up the ghost. But the god damn carpet. And the tea. If he could just have one more cup of tea.
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