Raspberry Tea (Non-Mythos)

[Adrian]

There are no monsters or creatures here. In fact I tried to put as little fantasy element here as I could. Forgive the typos. Hope some enjoy this piece. It may be confusing to read due to the different narratives and so on.
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It sure was cold.

Coldest day in November for sure. The little girl picked up her little teapot and poured some into the small cup, and then placed it gently on the wooden plate she had found washed ashore, gently and trying hard not to spill any. In every motion there could be seen extreme care and devotion, like she was making tea and the her whole world was depending on how well she performed.
When the ritual was over, and everything infront of her table was correctly put and orderly, she picked up the small plastic cup of tea, and asked:
*Father, would you like a cup of tea? It sure is cold out here, you should drink some warm yummy rasperry tea? No? Why won't you ever drink it? You used to drink before, no? Yes you did, me and mommy and you sat around the table set, that you had brought from one of the travels that you had to make because of your important job, remember?
Father? Why won't you answer me? Thats not polite, you told me so once. Father? Well, if you don't want your tea now, I better leave it here to cool down.*
***

The woman sitting on the bed under the open window listening forced her face into the pillow, because she didn't... couldn't stand her own voice when crying. It depressed her even more. But the autumn wind brought her no mercy... The voices were... The voices rode on the backs of the cold, numbing winds that the sea blew in... Now she almost wished she and him wouldn't have bought a house so close to the coast, especially with that wavebreaker so close...

When the wind was fierce, the waves rode into the barrier, making low thumping noises... like a heart pounding faster and faster... faster until the thumps start to quiet down, until the heart stops the beating and all is quiet, so quiet... And the wind has stopped its rebellion against the skies and the earth and the sea settles down again... He loved that... The sea, this coast... The wavebreaker... Why had he gone...?

The woman laying in the bed smothered her voice only to hear her daughter from the wavebreaker - the wind carrying the most distant voices and whisperings onto her window and into her ears... And she heard the little girl talking to herself again...

She sprang up and ran to the open window. She had sneaked out again. What was she doing?
***

*Well, the tea is now nice and cold, daddy. Try to drink it, you look like you could use some. You don't want to? That's going to upset mommy when I tell her that. She has been upset enough ever since that day you disappeared, you know? Crying and then being sad and then crying... Tried to tell her that you've come back, that you were standing on the pier... I don't know why she doesn't believe me anymore. Oh, there she is now, you see? On the northern window. See!*

***

What was she doing out in this weather? It was so cold and windy that the wind blew right through you and chilled the bones, numbing the nerves... The woman turned away from the window, after seeing her pointing the finger at her. This had to stop! She couldn't stand it any more... the way she talked about him... like he was still alive somehow... Poor child... And it hurt so much, when she came every day running and jumping and shouting to come out and have some rasperry tea with them, like in the old days...

She closed the curtains and went downstairs. It felt like the winds had invaded the big, empty house now. A draft lifted the napkins up, that had been laying on the cupboard. Lifted them up and spun them around, without purpose and aim, like leaves, like dead butterflies, torn apart and the only things left are wings that keep flying... Torn apart... The most important thing in her life...

Sighing deeply, she slowly crossed the living room, as taking on a journey without end, the legs heavy as of iron and the eyes seeing nothing, but forced to see the surroundings... What was in that girls head, she didn't know. She had to face the facts someday... He was gone and there was nothing they could do about it... Maybe she should go and see that doctor she had seen, right after he...

Leaning to the kitchen chair, she looked through the glass window, how her daughter was having a teaparty in the cold, freezing wind, while the sprays of salty seawater where carried at her and her little table, soaking her and making her grab a stronger rock when a stronger current hit.

All she had to do was to call out through the door and she would run back to the house, carrying her teaset and shivering with cold, sneezing and coughing. That was all she had to do to get her daughter off that pier, away from those treacherous winds that could giver a bad cough...

Instead she clinged onto the chair more strongly, forcing herself to sit down before gravity could empower her legs. Call her... because she wouldn't come on her own... Wouldn't come back from the end of the wavebreaker, because she was drinking hot tea... hot tea to warm up her father...

Staring at the shape on the pier, she started to shiver, but not from the cold breeze that had found a way into the house through a crack or cravice. The last time she had called her back made her take a double of those pills she had been described... She sounded so convinced... Telling her that this time daddy was feeling much better, and the wounds had almost healed, leaving scars to the places the wave had thrown him against the jagged rocks of the pier.

And the look, the look she gave her when telling of those things, holding her little pot of imaginary tea, and telling her that he was okay, sitting on the end of the pier and just staring at the house... Almost... She almost ran out of the house for the first time she had told her that... Ran through the edged wind, to see... endless armies of the grey waves, coming from the end of the world, the center of the sea... And dissolving into mist and sprays. With nothing left but the cold the waves carried...

***

*Mommy's not feeling well, that's all. No! No... don't say that, she isn't like that at all, she's just... having hard time accepting you were gone so long, and now you've returned... Oh daddy, I'm so glad we're all together now, even if mother isn't feeling good. No, you don't understand, I can't come with you yet, father. I can't come without mommy, I need my mommy. And you need mommy too, you know. ... I am not! I am not pouting! Oohh... You're hands are cold, father, it tickles... Why won't you drink some tea? It's hot, and this time its cherry-flavoured. ... ... ... Hmph! Still don't like it? Ah well, I must be getting back inside now anyway. See, mommy's downstairs, probably worrying sick about me, waiting for me. Yes, I know you're waiting for me too, daddy, but I can't just pick up and leave. Bye for now, see you tomorrow!*

***

The glass-door closed shut, as the little girl struggled with the violent winds, that were trying to spread the cold and vicious numbness everywhere. Then, as she put her teaset on the table, got on the high chair next to the table and grabbed a towel to wipe the water off her face and limbs, that were whitish-blue from the autumn weather. Shivering, she started to dry her blonde hair, while staring at her mother, who was having hard time looking at her. Although her head was staring to pound with fear and confusion, she barely opened her mouth:

*The next time you want to go and have a tea-party with your friends, you'll wait for the summer, or warmer weathers to come. We wouldn't want you to catch a cold or worse, now, do we?*

The fake smile from the corner of her mouth didn't come out very well, as did the worried voice.


*Oh, that's quite alright. I hardly ever notice the cold. Time passes on so quickly when you have so much fun!*

Staring from the corner of her eye, she thought as her daughter was looking at someone certain through the window. And how could she be so happy and look so satisfied after spending almost a half an hour in the cold outside? What was there to be merry about. She looked like she just had the time of her life...


*Wouldn't it be a better idea to hold the parties inside the house, where it's warm? You can have such great time here. I don't understand why you sneak out all the time. I've told you enough times that I don't like it.*

Her voice lowered as she knew where this was leading. Forcing her hands against the wooden table, preventing them from shaking, preventing to show to her that it bothered her, bothered that her daughter thought she was drinking tea with her dead and lost father on the pier. Because... the way she talked about it... like she was explaining it to her own child... It was freaking her out...


*Nah... Daddy wouldn't like it. He hates the warmth now, he said. It's not hot where he is now, you know?*

*Honey...*

*It's hard for him to even stay up here, he said. Because it is too warm, even in this weather. He said he can't drink the tea I give - *

*Honey, he isn't there, you know that...*

* - but he keeps coming back, because he wants us all to be together again, remember mommy, like we used to be, remember?*

*I... I'm... Don't say that... Go to your room... Please, just go...*

*But mommy, don't you love daddy at all?*

***

All the lights were put out. And in the furthest corner from the kitchen, she sat, facing the door, so she could see outside at the wavebreaker. It wasn't raining outside, but the wind raiding the roofs and spinning up the dried leaves, mixed with her tears dropping on the floor made a strange mixture of sound... It was Autumn.

She hadn't turned the heat on. She hadn't had anything to eat or drink for a day or more, and all the pills she had, were thrown into the sink and flushed. She didn't care if it was the wind whispered through the opened windows or was it the sound of something else in her head... The ones that had come back when she stopped taking the pills... It didn't make any difference now.

Had she really hit her? Lifting up her hand, she stared at it dizziliy as a foreign object. Hmph. She had hit her. And now she was up in her room. Crying, probably. She couldn't... she didn't have the strength to go up there... If only he would be here next to her, and they could both go up the stairs and take their daughter into his lap, and then she would cry until he would have started tickling her and pretending to have a teaparty with her... and everything would have been alright... again.

But he wasn't here. He wasn't! He was dead and that was it!

She jumped up, and ran to the kitchen. The water was boiling over, spitting out hot steam, that was soon swept asie by the embrace of the breeze. She stopped crying when she poured the water to the small cups and then stopped. Looked behind her. The cold was penetrating her clothes, and now she was pretty sure it was as cold inside the house as outside.

*Mommy... What are you doing?*

It was in her favour that the pot was empty, because the boiling water would have burnt her hands, that were now beginning to shake again.

*Get the tea from the cupboard. Don't argue.*

She stared as her daughter moved down the stairs, quietly, as of afraid of the woman standing in front of her. As ordered, she took out a bag of raspberry tea and mixed it with the hot water.

*What are you doing, mommy?*

*Were going to have a teaparty, honey.*

*Oh.*

Her voice brightened up a bit. Mommy seemed to be fine after all. She stepped closer to her.

*Do you want to see daddy?*

Looking straight ahead, through the glass-door, she shook her head and said:

*He's... dead hon'. You can't drink tea with him. He isn't real.*

*Then why the teaparty? There's no-one to have it with here besides father and you. Why don't you want to drink tea with daddy?*

Picking the hot cup from the table, she whispered:

*He is dead. He fell off the wavebreaker. He's dead and that's all there is.*


But the tone in her voice sounded silly, like a child trying to convince himself that the voices from under the bed come from a rat, not a blood-thirsty monster.

The raspberry tea was burning her hands.

*He's dead. He fell off the wavebreaker...*

She took a slow step forward towards the door. As did her daughter.

*Pick an extra cup.*

*... Why? ...*

She stopped and looked down on her daughter.

*Just take it. Were going to have a teaparty, dear.*

*But daddy - *

* - is dead. He fell off the pier and thats all there is. Now come, dear.*

They walked out the door into the blistering cold. The below zero degrees were freezing the usual Autumn rain into twisted, lumpy snowflakes. They dissolved in the hot, steaming teacups. Both stayed quiet when feeling the cold numbing their limbs and making them turn blue from it. Both stayed silent when seeing a figure laying between the larger rocks in the end of the wavebreaker.

*He's dead, he fell off the wavebreaker and drowned, he's dead and there's nothing we can do about it, he died, drowning...*

But as her daughter took her hand out of hers, she had nothing to hold onto besides the hot teacup. Her daughter ran ahead, screaming something into the blizzard, that she couldn't quite catch. The figure wasn't moving, but her daughter had snuggled up with it. She put the cup down and ran to the end of the wavebreaker.

***

The only trace the official authorities could find of them outside, were three cups of tea, all empty. The bodies were never found.

[sarahjoe]

Her voice lowered as she knew where this was leading. Forcing her hands against the wooden table, preventing them from shaking, preventing to show to her that it bothered her, bothered that her daughter thought she was drinking tea with her dead and lost father on the pier. Because... the way she talked about it... like she was explaining it to her own child... It was freaking her out.