the waiting place is a tea store on sunday

中午 At 12:00 pm you walk into the tea store that lies just above the edges of your consciousness, embalm your tongue with the scent of green tea and honey. Tall canisters lie packed like cylindrical bīng mǎ yǒng that watch unblinkingly, laced with armour that sends the half-light reeling. Stand in front of the wooden zhezhi-cut counter and smile at the shop assistant picking up the plastic cups littering the tabletop like dead flies. "What's your order today?" and you reply as according to the silvery inlaid character on the wall for love/eye (ai). Tilt your head up and suck in the oolong-scented air like sweet soap bubbles spilling into your lungs, slide your fingers past the jars of loose leaf silver needle tea to grasp at whatever was lost in translation from years before.

生活

Your mother tells you that you have two lives. You stare at the customers and the humans behind the counter and watch them pour pu'er tea from ceramic-carved teapots shaped like green snail springs, rainwater ripe and rushing from the cold spout. At 12:10 pm you wonder if you will see them in the next life, or if they're here then gone again, spirits hovering in tandem for you to smile at and offer your name. If your name's enough for you to give them. At 12:15 they call the name you've given them and slide a fingerprint-stained frothing glass stern and towering like what they call the iron goddess of mercy. Thank them and smile before you exit. If you do exit. Smile again. There can never be too many smiles.