[11] tea

One of the guys sitting at the counter pulled out a stool for me, and I sat down between people I didn't know. The shop was a tiny, golden oasis in a day of rain. All six of us at the counter chatted over our tea, almost involuntarily, because we were all sitting as close to one another as good friends. I held my warm mug in my hands, eschewing milk and sugar for once. It seemed wrong, somehow, in a shop where the owner hand-selects daily teas and steeps it to perfection before handing it to you, to amend the tea in any way. We lingered, strangers bound by the warm drinks in our hands and the article about sleep in the National Geographic, reluctant to venture back outside to errands and headlights.