Tea Leaves by Jacob Budenz EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Jacob Budenz
- Language: English
- Genre: Popular
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
When I opened my eyes a little wider and tilted my head just so—to see,
really see—I noticed the fairies dancing between the floorboards of my
bedroom. Have you ever passed by a painting every day without actually
looking at it, and then just once, by chance, you take it in and realize all this
time you’ve been walking past something shocking, like a painting of an
angel sodomizing an alien, all along? You feel intrigued, but also kind of
violated, when you think of how long the image has been slipping itself into
your subconscious.
Seeing the fairies felt like that, like maybe I’d been
glancing at them out of the corner of my eye for my whole life. I watched
the tiny glowing bodies dance in the ridges of the teal-painted hardwood,
little naked, winged creatures all colorful and aglow like Christmas lights. I
could’ve stared at them all morning if I hadn’t had to go to work.
Once I saw them I couldn’t stop seeing them, of course. They were
everywhere, from a family of four in the orchid on my coworker’s desk (her
cubicle always overflowed with over-the-top gestures from her fiancé) to
three little blue men playing in the urinal like it was a goddamned water
park.
When I mentioned my groundbreaking revelation about the fairies to
Janet, the receptionist at work, she rolled her eyes and said (of all things),
“Where the fuck have you been, Ronnie?”
But when I shrugged and walked off (I think she liked to call me
“Ronnie” instead of “Ron” just to get under my skin), I glanced behind me
to see her squinting at my back like I’d sprouted bat wings, and I didn’t buy
her shtick for a second. No, sir. She’d been acting all snarky and too-cool
ever since she’d tried to set me up with her “gay best friend” Enrique. Oh,
yeah, she’d given me the whole line, He’s just so sassy and funny like you,
and I’d said, You know not all us fags are a perfect match by virtue of the
fact that you know them, Janet. Anyway, some of us are happier being
alone.
It was a petty thing to say, sure, and I was lying through my teeth
about preferring to be alone. Still, I had my pride. Anyway, if this Enrique
had helped her pick out even one of her tacky, ill-fitting skirt suits, then he
was as tasteless as she was, and I wanted no part. Honestly, I don’t even
know why I mentioned the fairies to Janet in the first place. I’d just sort of
blurted it, eager to share the knowledge with someone, to share something
new and exciting with another human as I had so little occasion to do.
Obviously the wrong move.
I typically preferred to take my lunch break off-site, alone, lest I got
stuck talking about marketing data during the hour we got to eat. Today,
though, I brought lunch in a sad plastic bag to eat in the undersized kitchen
on the fifth floor, to see if any of my coworkers talked about the fairies.
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