In the summer you place tea bags in a glass jar with water and bring it to the back porch. You hardly come out here any more even though it gets the best sun. You don’t wipe away the dust as you set the jar on an end table next to a notebook filled with verb conjugations. Stuffy rooms bother your sinuses. Underneath the notebook is a Bible nailed shut and filled with family secrets. Life sentences. The words that make up your existence. The whole room is an Olympic sized swimming pool in the off season. A mass grave. A warehouse filled with slightly irregular greeting cards. This room gets the best sun so you’re expecting results. Who doesn’t love tea in the summertime?
In the winter you wait until the streets are cleared to drive to the store. In the empty parking lot you carefully adjust the handicapped sign hanging from the rear view mirror and walk toward the entrance. Cold air bothers your sinuses. The doors open themselves and you’re greeted by a chilled tower of butter substitutes. There is no ocean of sound. The speaker system must be broken. The store is like an Olympic sized swimming pool in the off season. You swim through the aisles, forgetting what you came for. You settle for a carton of lemonade, wishing that you’d lived your life differently.
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