Tea Pot and Toast

In love, there is. This is the secret. To love is to be, and to be is to love. So be with love, said the snowman. The carrot just stood there. The oreo went twist, lick, dunk, and the whole wide western world stayed drunk. In the east, in the night, they found delight. In time, there is only the present. In the present, there is only love. And love is boring most times. And that's the best part. In boring times, you're challenged to get creative and find the very best that will come out of whatever it is you're bored with doing in the loving present. So be present.

The words to describe how he made her feel were fickle, mumbled blubbering by a madman. There was never the right thing to say. Chris sat beside Crystal as she lay sleeping, wondering where her spirit roamed. His own soon wanders too; deep into his own cavernous pools of universal knowledge, through the fabrics of space and time, to a memory distant yet always within thought's reach. There had been another, then. Annabelle. She had awoken him. He missed her. Crystal stirred. She and Chris exchanged smiles. She turns a hundred and eighty degrees onto her other side and returns to the realm of conception. Chris rose from bed and walked to the mirror. He stood before it looked over every inch of his naked body. Perfection. Crystal woke. She saw Chris at the mirror indulging in his own narcissism and couldn't help but get wet all over again. Perfection. She recalled their evenings of endless pleasure. Him. His body. His mind. All perfect. She rose from bed and walked to the mirror. She pulled him into her arms from behind kissed the bridge of his neck.

'I love you,' she whispered. Chris turned to face her. Her eyes glistened. Always they glistened. And her smile, her perfect white smile. Her beaming face. A memory flashed. He saw into Crystal's heart and his own melted again. Perfect. A kiss.

It was hours later. Chris had completed his assignments. Crystal was making tea.

'So, I heard today that the athlete was on drugs too,' he said as he paged through the day's gazette.

'Oh, yeah. I heard that. Apparently his girlfriend was threatening to expose him and he couldn't take it, so he offed her.' Crystal brought over a plate of toast and a pot of tea and prepared breakfast as she spoke. Chris listened. 'It's all really stupid, though. I mean, why would she want to expose him? If she loved him, why would she play like that? I'm not saying that she deserved to be killed. But think about it. You've been dating the guy for a while. You know he has issues. You know he gets aggressive. You know he owns a gun. Why are you then going to bait him? Why not just leave? Because she had issues too. I rate she was trying to change him. Still no reason to kill her, though. He was probably on drugs then too. He looks like a heroin sort. Anyway, what do you think?'

Chris buttered a piece of toast, broke it in half, dunked both halves in his tea, gulped one, offered the other to Crystal. She swallowed. He spoke. She heard every word and saw every vividly painted image in her mind's eye as he spoke, although she wasn't sure what he was saying. He had no filters, and so one thought fed into the next, looped back around, got stuck, made a left turn, turned left again and then right around the bend and then stop. Their eyes met. She couldn't help herself. He couldn't resist.

Fourty Five minutes later.

'Hey, Crystal,' he prompted.

'Hey,' she replied.

'Did you hear about the mother broke her daughter's legs in two? And said it's too dangerous for you to walk outside so I had to save you!"'

'Isn't that a line from that song about an orange?' she asked.

'Not any longer. I just remembered something Heidi said to me at rehearsal today. She was telling me about her neighbors. She swears she hears a child crying in their apartment, yet she has never seen a child entering or leaving their place. Last week she went snooping and found a window to a basement. She peeped inside and saw a chained little thing. She did the logical thing. She got on with her life. I mean, let's face it. People die in horror movies because they meddle in things that aren't for them to meddle in. So she walked away. That reminded me of the song about an orange. A weird synchronicity because today before rehearsal her neighbors were raided. Somebody else had been curious and peeped through the basement window. This person called the heat. While we were rehearsing, she received a call saying that the whistle blower neighbor had been found dead in his swimming pool. It's really too dangerous to walk outside. If you think about it. I don't know.'

'Chris, are you on drugs?' Crystal asked laughingly.

'Well, no! Drugs are bad. Everybody knows drugs are bad! Hey, could you please pass me the ashtray and bong from over there behind you?'

They smoked.