Tea Time

Darkness was all they ever knew.

They lived beneath our feet, forever plotting our end.

For there are two types of human beings.

Those who grew under the sun.

And those who retreated to the dark silence of the underworld.

                                                                              ***

            Lost. Such a simple four letter word, but it's a word the boy dreaded thinking at the moment. He was lost, horribly lost. He clutched the stuffed toy tightly to his chest as he walked through what he suspected was a battlefield.

Dead bodies were everywhere, surrounded by puddles of mud and blood. The bodies were rotting and a thick, ghastly smell hung in the air. Maggots covered practically every corner of the land. Flies blocked the view of the sky. Not that it mattered. There was no real sky to see.

The boy's face was covered in snot as he cried, not for the loss of all these lives. But because he couldn't fathom where he was.

He kept calling out for his mother, his father, then his brother and sisters, even his school teachers and a few of his friends, he hoped calling all those names would help him feel less lost. Though as he continued walking through the forgotten battlefield he soon found it harder and harder to repeat the names he knew so well, he was forgetting them, just like others had forgotten this field of dead bodies.

Then he heard something, a soft singing voice calling out to him. He turned, and he saw something beautiful yet horrifying and ugly at the same time.

A woman, it appeared to be, with the wings of a butterfly. Only her wings were much larger and they shimmered with all the colors of the sunset. She was a skinny woman, her legs and arms looked like twigs yet her feet and hands were so long, large, and fat looking. Her face was pale and white, no eyes no nose, just a mouth.

The boy screamed, he dropped his stuffed toy and tried feverishly to back away from the creature that was gently and slowly flying towards him. But he tripped over a rotting arm and fell harshly to the disgustingly damp ground.

"Child, do not run," the creature sang to him. "I have an offer to make you."

She gestured towards the dead around them. "Child, this is what the world is coming to, both mine and yours."

She reached out and placed a long, fat finger on the boy's forehead, causing him to shake uncontrollably.

"Everyone you know has already forgotten about you, just like you will forget about them. You will live a hopeless life, always forgetting about important things, never being quite able to remember. Unless of course you can find a way to end--"

Again she gestured to the battlefield. "--this."

The creature disappeared then and the next thing the boy knew was that he was in a dark alley, the rain pelting relentlessly on the pavement and the sun hidden behind clouds. He was holding onto his stuffed animal, trying to remember his name, where he came from, how old he was, and his reason for being out in the rain.

All he remembered was the creature and her words.

                                                                            ****

1862, Somewhere in Connecticut

         No one seemed to notice the strange man walking down the street, holding on to the china plate with the small tea cup on top, trying hard not to spill a drop of it. Or maybe, they were just trying to ignore him.

He was dressed in a flashy matter, with black boots reaching up to his knees, plain brown trousers, a blue coat made out of velvet that matched the blue ribbon that tied up his blond hair. The ribbon and the coat were only there to match his eyes.