There's a tea stall close to my agency.
We go there whenever we've had enough of the canteen, need smokes or want to eat toast with excessive helpings of butter. Or at least that's the excuse...
Thing is, the tea stall has an extraordinarily good vibe. It's preparation of tea secretes endorphins into the atmosphere. Naturally, a cloud of niceness persists around the place. And we aren't the only ones who feel it. A family of pigs has made its home about its fringes. Warring packs of dogs sign their peace treaties here. And i go there whenever I'm depressed.
Today happened to be one such day. I was piling on to my friend Gresha's empathy, having just gobbled up her toast with way too much butter. Which was when we met him.
He was a bird now. The millennia hadn't been nice to him. The Ice Age had invaded and he had to flee his kingdom. Giving up the top rung on the food chain his genetics had granted him, he had flown down to somewhere quite close to the bottom. He still soared up sometimes, looking down at everyone else, enjoying the mild sense of nostalgia the perspective allowed him. Thankfully, the dogs granted him amnesty about the tea stall.
Walking about, pecking at our leftovers, he enjoyed an incidental camaraderie with us. Gresha and I sat there, momentarily awed by his former majesty.
'How's life?', she asked, in a general fashion.
'I'm not complaining', i said, 'look what it did to him.'
We go there whenever we've had enough of the canteen, need smokes or want to eat toast with excessive helpings of butter. Or at least that's the excuse...
Thing is, the tea stall has an extraordinarily good vibe. It's preparation of tea secretes endorphins into the atmosphere. Naturally, a cloud of niceness persists around the place. And we aren't the only ones who feel it. A family of pigs has made its home about its fringes. Warring packs of dogs sign their peace treaties here. And i go there whenever I'm depressed.
Today happened to be one such day. I was piling on to my friend Gresha's empathy, having just gobbled up her toast with way too much butter. Which was when we met him.
He was a bird now. The millennia hadn't been nice to him. The Ice Age had invaded and he had to flee his kingdom. Giving up the top rung on the food chain his genetics had granted him, he had flown down to somewhere quite close to the bottom. He still soared up sometimes, looking down at everyone else, enjoying the mild sense of nostalgia the perspective allowed him. Thankfully, the dogs granted him amnesty about the tea stall.
Walking about, pecking at our leftovers, he enjoyed an incidental camaraderie with us. Gresha and I sat there, momentarily awed by his former majesty.
'How's life?', she asked, in a general fashion.
'I'm not complaining', i said, 'look what it did to him.'
