The inside of her mug’s caked in stains every shade of brown. Think, a dig for ancient whatevers in a desert.
She takes her first morning Columbian black.
Her second with five(ish) sugar packets.
Her third and fourth, a little cream.
The t-shirt/flower-print scarf combo work-ensemble makes her almost fictional. Almost. Disheveled, jittery, she lifts her mug from her desk to her face, desk, to face. She talks Twenties, and flappers, and diaphragms. If this were a novel, nobody’d believe she were real.
And all day her mug makes more new rings on her desk.
Mug crust shows her yesterday, and last week, and last month through her afternoon green tea. Think, staring down through nearly clear water at the ocean floor somewhere not here.
The sun catches dozens of interlaced rings of grit melting into a map of time by the end of the day.
Past, present, no future.
But tomorrow, more history.
