text: TEA FOR ONE OR TWO I grew up watching a lot of movies and I knew that stories based on true events were mostly made up for entertainment, so I had no reason to believe them, but they were entertaining so I always liked watching them. Movies like The Amityville horror, Sybil, movies about people suddenly going crazy and so on. They made me laugh at those who thought those things and events were real. I never took them seriously, at least not until one day I realized that I was not alone, and it was not just me .... living in me. I was having my morning cup of tea as I usually did every day before I left for work. I was sitting at my little table in my little apartment. I had just finished my first cup of tea and was about to get up to have another. Another one of my self-made flavored teas that was in my mind the talk of my neighbors, because one cup I know they most likely said, was never going to be enough. My tea had to be the best because I was the best. As I rose from the table, I heard loud and clear somebody shout the word "NO!" I turned around towards the living room because it sounded as though the person shouting was right near me. I laughed and said to myself “I hope nobody is about to get murdered. Or come up missing” I will admit that it startled me at first, but I figured between my thin apartment walls and the usually loud boisterous guy upstairs, it was probably just him shouting at his kids again. So, I just continued towards my kitchen stove which was only a few feet away from the table I was sitting at. As always, I stopped in front of the mirror that was on the closest door to make sure that my well-kept hair, looked well kept. Ok I was vain, but this was my life, I thought. As expected, every strand as usual was all in place. After all I did have to go to work soon, and I always looked good for work and no matter who agreed with my dress style I knew I was dressed to kill. As I looked in the mirror, I again heard loud clear "No" but this time it happened as I was looking straight into the mirror and what I saw caused shock and fear to suddenly go through every bone in my body with a rush that almost knocked me backwards. I damn near fainted at what I saw, my lips before my very eyes had involuntarily moved and I read my own lips as they had formed the word connected to the shout I had just heard. My first thought my mind quickly came up with, was most likely was an effort by my mind to help keep my sanity. I thought that maybe the man upstairs who hated me, who I had argued with on many occasions about the noise, had somehow gotten into my apartment and somehow put some hallucinate drug in my precious tea. Maybe that was a thought because one night I had dreamed that he did that or maybe because I knew the man didn’t like that his wife had on occasion, innocently had a cup tea with me before I left for work, after she had dropped her kids off at school. But if it wasn’t him, was what I saw in the mirror an illusion or like in those movies I laughed at, some force or someone within me finally coming out at this time, with no fear of me having the strength to fight back, to prevent me from becoming a whole them. I found myself walking toward the teapot again, but it wasn’t really me, I no longer wanted to. He or it was taking over, I felt it, it was happening quickly and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. As I watched my body being controlled by another I realized after he reached the cabinet over the stove, that he wasn’t going to get another cup of my fine tea. This son of a gun reached and grabbed the coffee. I never drank coffee, and it was only around for visitors. This is one reason I felt and knew that this was the beginning of the end of me, the me the world knew. I probably will never know how or why this has happened to me at this moment and at this time in my life at the age of 45. Was I always destined to only live what was maybe half my bodies life as me? Unfortunately, it was, I know because he told me so. The voice I heard within me when it spoke again told me loud and clear that together we will become him, and I would be no more. There is no doubt that he had been waiting in my mind and body for this time to come. He had to know that my mind and body had been weakened from the pressure of my job and the pressure of just being me. I know now that I should have kept those appointments with the psychologist, maybe the doctor could have helped me stay me Still Its strange that the final thoughts of mine were not about the conflict within or the hostile takeover of me during my morning cup of tea nor were they about me watching myself go upstairs and change into clothes that I would never have worn to work. My thoughts were about knowing that I’ll never ever enjoy another cup of my wonderful tea again and neither would those who had the pleasure of tasting it before. If I must guess, I would have to believe that from now on, they will be trying and tasting some good ass neighborly coffee, instead of my tea. I just don’t feel or think that things will ever be the same, because I’ll never be me again.