Albedo Chapter Five
Tea, Farinaceous
"When I was about 13 my Mum and I stopped at a motorway services, one of the few still around back
in those days, one of a little spine of them running up the country. The only really place she could
stop and charge her old wagon. Full of beads and beanbags. The one I'm remembering was on its last
legs, suffering enough to combine with a campsite behind and meld into a money-pit. Absolutely
everything there was self-service, food and laundry and check-in. Once Mum realised it was full of
her loathed 'uptight' people she was set to leave, claiming a refund from one of the kiosks. I'd
already gotten caught up amongst the arcade machines, feeding two pence pieces into the machines,
bumping the ten penny ones to scrump five goes on the two ones. Looping between hot stations and the
coin changer, following after kids who'd given up just before the going got good. It was a while
before I realised she'd given up calling for me, and even longer before I realised she'd up and left
for the next site. At least a few hours. I'd stolen fountain drinks from a fast food place nearby,
back when they had the machines out for refills, and I'd spent at least an hour watching an older
girl beating a fighting game over and over. I got hungry and went to try to find her for food, but
she wasn't anywhere to be seen. Another loose kid shared some chips with me, and I ended up taking a
nap in one of the inert massage chairs. I figured Mum would come to me after she'd finished up with
whatever adult stuff she'd gotten into, setting up the van or whatever. I woke up to a little bald
man driving past on a floor cleaning machine. A young couple arguing on a mezzanine floor above me.
Had my proper panic then, morning sunlight blazing through the exit doors, sweaty face stuck to the
faux chair leather. Walking up and down the carpark searching for her, checking along rows of the
campsite, trying not to draw attention to myself from the other campers waking up. At about three
that afternoon she rocks up, 'Had enough of the arcades yet kid?'"
"What did you day to her? You get angry with her?"
"Wanted to. Wanted to shout and scream the place down at first, to cry and tell her how scared she'd
made me. Make her not do it again. But I knew it wouldn't change her, even then, she was just
somebody who could never see her own wrongdoing. Didn't have that function within her. I just jumped
in the van with her and we drove away."
"That... sounds horrible Fliss - you didn't deserve that."
"I turned the tables on her when I ran away a few years later though. Wonder if she misses me, the
silly old bag."
In the morning, fresh air leaking into the stuffy room through the window Marnie had set ajar after
waking up sweating. Now she laid back staring at her filthy flat, putting together a little plan of
the easiest way to get clear of it all, to resolve days and days of forgotten chores. Crusty
underwear, sink full of crock and cutlery, cups surrounding the bed, dust bunnies breeding and
siring young, bathroom thick with pink slime. The urge to lay back into sleep was hard to ignore,
but she leaned over into the window a bit, stuck her head out into the sun of the morning. The Marsh
Estate lingered in all directions, flat placid water shining in a plane, slicing the houses at the
knees. Brick buildings slipping into their cold bath, pulled apart by moss and lichen and algae. It
made Marnie feel cold. Cold enough to finally get out of bed and walk over to the dim little wall
panel with access to the utilities, buy electric, check water levels in her personal tank, book
maintenance. The building owner's solution to avoid the damaged underground water system was unique
to the area at the time, but became common practice in the years after it was installed. A treatment
plant on the roof and in one of the lower floors, pumps and tanks spread throughout and amongst the
old plumbing. A siphon into the floodwater and capture troughs on the roof, a steady seep of
reclaimed water divvied up amongst the apartments. The panel said she'd accrued one hundred and ten
litres of water, which meant about eleven minutes in the shower. Adding a few more ticks of power
to her account, flicking the immersion heater on, spraying down the shower stall and connecting up
the retractable hose from the drain to the washing machine port in the wall to reclaim the water,
then loading up clothes and flipping switches to get everything going. Stripped off pyjamas on the
floor, scrubbing a foamy layer onto skin and pointing the head at all the walls in the shower. The
water turned from cold to warm and she stepped in, sighing and melting into the heat. Gooseflesh and
rounded shoulders smoothed out, rounds of steam appearing in the morning sunlight leaning into the
small tiled room, blossoming into the air in peals and petals.
Dressing and bagging up random detritus from across the room, she was quick in stepping out of the
flat into the hall, holding two bin bags at arms length stinking. Hefting onto the barge out front
where it floated waiting for the rubbish tug to pick it up in a long train on Mondays. She stood
outside and routed the waste water from the laundry on the water panel app, staring up into the
clear sky and feeling the day stretch out in front of her. A long dry stretch of hours before night
and bed and the same thing again and again ad infinitum, nothing new. She'd seen everything she
would see today before, it made no difference whether or not she did it at all. Some sort of phantom
pain in a vestigial organ she didn't know she had was swelling. A heat in the head. A malaise.
Floating in on the breeze came a thistle seed, and with it a bath of cold. Clear minded, all prior
consternation leaving with the heat. In an instant, she was standing on the prow of a water-taxi,
skipping down a burst, bloated river towards the ocean, then in another moment back up an overflowed
tributary and breeching into the system of canals in the centre of town all in a few quick flashes.
The driver slowed almost to a stop and began the delicate process of weaving between two restaurant
boat captains arguing in a lock. Quietly mouthing 'forgive' as he passed by. The timbre of the
voices lulled into a quiet and resumed after they had passed. Layers of boats passed back and forth,
the crowded waterways slowing them to a crawl, Marnie pointed to an early drop off point to save
them both the hassle of battling into the maelstrom towards the docks. "You're my G" the taxi man
said as she paid and stepped over into shallow water, wobbling the man in the boat. Sloshing through
the reeds and rubbish and up onto the bank, catching some looks from the ladies in the boat up
ahead.
The front entrance to the centre was grand to some extent, at least tall and clean and designed to
be seen. The camber of the lead up from water level and the walking bridge over the river from town
encouraged the eye inside, the doors open to feed on the trickle of entering people. Marnie circled
around the side of the building to gardens of a steep pitch. Washed stone footpaths and river rock
borders, delphiniums and hollyhocks and dianthus and lavender, peonies in little reclaimed pots and
jars. The uninitiated might have thought it maintained by the same team that buffed the floors or
blew the leaves out front, but it was the product of the efforts of a single person, a slight lady
of middling years, near mute, mostly mad. Strips of cloth holding her hair back in tails, hand
knitted clothing, often kneeling in the soil weeding or trimming. Marnie watched her as she worked,
winding slowly through the beds and up the paths, seeking her attention, willing her to look up, to
explain. Like a blanket being laid flat, the creases in the air smoothed out between them and Eve
the gardener looked up and began gathering herself over to Marnie, livid skirts yanked up over
feet and ankles. She managed to produce a sprig in each hand, plucked from out of the air, or a
pocket unseen, placing them each behind an ear of Marnie's one by one, carefully tucking a piece of
hair behind. Smiling broadly with crooked teeth, "Salvia Rosmarinus, has the healing of wounds.
Although I'm sure it has trouble working on the brain." Marnie smiled under her intense stare,
trying to think of something to say to this tragic little lady, twitchy and muddy. Soft, keening
voice hitting a frequency that almost brought tears. She would have liked to have writhed out of
this moment, she could do nothing for this woman, this 'could have been me' person, staring up at
her now. Eve the gardener, who'd been introduced by S.P to Marnie years ago, took her softly by the
wrist now, "Come with me now Rosmarinus" and leading her up towards the building. Ivy clotted
brickwork approaching the pair from up front, a stretch of wall at the base of the structure a
different shade from the clad rest. Eve's free hand outstretched tapping into the leaves, revealing
a hidden handle as she pull part of the wall out on hinges. A crusty, flaking seal broke as it came
open, pulling Marnie inside without comment, spinning to pinch at the air between the door and the
jamb. A strip of dust covered windows soaked the little room in amber lighting from on high. Eve
turned and walked over to a second door on the inside, reaching for the handle and then pausing as
if to rethink. Placing palm on the door tapping with thumb and fingers, strong nails rapping out a
coded message. Triplets and flams, spaced for intelligibility. Three, five, four, two, one, five,
five, four. There was a brief moment of silence before someone on the other side replied. Deep
thunks like knives being driven into the wood. Then an extra thunk like all those blades being
yanked out. Eve turned to her "Inside now my dear" departing quickly into the air and the sun.
Marnie had a long moment of hesitation before her curiosity lead her into the next room. Four times
the floor space and double the height, it made the entrance feel like a cupboard. From behind, up
near the ceiling, clean copies of the murky cupboard windows illuminating in warm streams, flecks of
dust and strings of incense smoke drawing the outlines of the light-beams. There were cupboards and
crates and boxes laid about, a small wooden table holding up a dim lamp. Two women sat in soft
chairs, a third stood by a steaming kettle on a sideboard. The room had the air that they'd all just
finished laughing at a big joke. Calm humour just departing. Warm air from outside rushed in through
a vent in an audible gasp.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure why I'm here" Marnie said. The two ladies sitting gave a little smirk.
Marnie rankled at the thought she was the focus of their joke. "What's so funny?" she said. The two
of them shared a look and the tea-maker called over her shoulder "Fantastic backbone on her!" as
they pulled out a chair and asked her to sit down. "We don't bite" from the tea maker. She bought a
tray over with four cups and poured out a brew for each person. Porcelain packed liquid, amber and
gold the sunlight, sheathed in the steam as it poured. Shelves lined with jars of herbs and powders
gave backdrop to the seated couplet, one in wool and the other in linen. A silky curtain over the
semblance of a doorway in the corner. They turned to assess Marnie as she took her first swig of
nearly sweet amber, cloying and earthy. The tea maker, unexpectedly well dressed in a suit and
skirt, poured a glass of water from the tap and sipped a little before dashing the rest into the
drain and leaving without as much as a wave. The highly bitter aftertaste was making Marnie frown,
really unlike any other tea she'd ever tasted. "What's this tea? Tastes a little funny no?" The
linen lady leaned back and knocked a knuckle on one of the jars "Gunpowder black, but it's got a
little semilanceata brewed in to warm the soul. Little magic mushroom." Which raised Marnie's
eyebrows. "You'll barely feel it" said the woollen one.
They carried on the conversation they'd been having before she'd arrived, yet Marnie didn't find
much trouble slotting in to the conversation. Something about a groomsman at one of their weddings
many years back. They were natural conversationalists, inviting her to add her own points and
leaving room for her to filter in. She sipped her first pull slowly, cautious and curious. Testing
the edges of her vision for rippling and twittering. Sinking into the decision to be there,
sloughing her anxieties, stepping forward into the strange. She smiled and spoke, player and
audience to their talk. The sound of a train passing resounded, yet they were miles from the nearest
line. The floral pattern on the lady in wool's jumper bloomed in a chain, her peripheral throbbed,
tea steam dancing, woollen bracts waving like hands. Inflorescence. Looking down at her hands,
speaking of plant poachers from china, her hands were intensifying in detail logarithmically, tiny
pocks and lines aglow in the dim light, keratin pockets behind the tips tingeing almost fungally
soft. In Marnie's mind she could flip the chirality of them at will, thumbs and inflection flopping
front and fro, as if swapping wrists.
Her hosts were now smiling in silence, linen lady's clothing twitching with soft jet black gills.
Something about new-age type people with open toed shoes entered her mind, characteristically
over-sexual weirdos. Then she saw all of the air in the room and forgot everything. The light
leaking into the room took on a hirsute quality. The women's speech turned garbled. Marnie couldn't
tell if they were still talking at all. They were smiling with closed mouths and when the woollen one
spoke again it was warm and loud and sonorous. "Organisms in a system, our truths long forgotten. A
horde of systems we devised to teach us how to separate. To remove ourselves from the whole.
Then growing to destroy and deny our previous host. Systems of value removed from our true needs, of
us, the fruit of the earth. Feeding forever instead into the algorithms of conflict. Out in the
meadows, butterflies flit from bloodstain to bloodstain." Clusters of butterflies fled into the room
and spread like salt in hot water, melting into the walls, plants blooming and being pollinated,
bearing fruit and spreading genes, dying in the air, blossoming in crescendos across space in
hyper-speed, hyper-colour, hyper-detail. Thistle seeds tottering away on eddies of air. The linen
one spoke "Break the chrysalis, rid yourself of the invasive species, right the harmony. Can you
remember our habitat? Can you right it?" Marnie felt a surge of cold in her spine as she nodded.
There was a heaving exhale from somewhere behind Marnie, like the sudden burst of someone letting go
after holding their breath from a long time. The room filled with the smell of earth, a cold
moisture laced with layers of rot. The temperature dropped. The women in front of her stalled and
glitched, dropped frames in video. Life playing piecemeal. Marnie had to master the instinct to
flinch away, fighting herself to turn towards the sound. It started to take shape in her peripheral
vision. A glistening streak of disbelief. A huge, long-limbed dog, licking its chops, snarling and
gurgling, darkly luminescent, like pixels showing black. Once it was fully face on, it seemed like
nothing again. An empty corner of the room. Shadows gathering away from the sun, sin hiding from the
light. The voice came from where the shape had been, speaking softly. "The soul, the shoal" Marnie
turned her head to see the beast again. "Seed of the universe, containing it, the whole growing from
the part, depart. You have imbibed with them and now you are one of this band, disband. Take up
their plans, take up their plans and enemies. Take up weapons and kill. Power grows out of the
barrel of a gun." Marnie couldn't help but cringe away from the oppressive presence. The barometric
change almost popped her eardrums, each word it spoke echoed by some spectral vaporous version of
itself. Canine jaw snapping with each baritone word, ghostly image eventually catching up. Final
words screaming in her ears as she came back to cogency.
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