The Air Before Tea
Before the kettle finds its small voice, before steam s oftens the window, before the first bitterness loosens into warmth, there is the air— already inside me before I have remembered to be grateful. I never think to welcome it. It arrives without knocking, wearing no season I can name. It has crossed fields where tea bushes held out their dark leaves to a patient sun. It has leaned through forests older than any map, slipped between the ribs of antelope, lifted the wings of birds that never knew they were carrying the same morning toward me. Perhaps it paused beside my grandmother while she waited for water to boil, her hands smelling of ginger and soap, the day's work already gathering behind her eyes. Perhaps she returned it, changed in some small way by laughter, by worry, by a hymn she did not know she was humming. Nothing keeps it. Not mountains. Not mouths. Not the trees that borrow it only to give it back green with light. I drink my tea. The cup grows lighter. The window clears. And with my first quiet breath I send something onward— not mine, never mine— only passing through, as every blessing has always done.
Carol Mbugua is a Kenyan writer. Her work has appeared in Inner Worlds, The Suburban Review, Banshee, and Flame Tree Press publications. She is interested in stories that explore memory, myth, identity, and the hidden lives people carry within them. When not writing, she enjoys watching the Indian Ocean and filling journals with observations and unfinished ideas.
