The Smell of Tea

The First Morning

Run, run run. I was being carried by something warm. We were running and I was scared. I fell and the warmth disappeared.

I opened my eyes and at first, saw nothing but darkness. Slowly I regained my vision and made out shapes in the dark. I could make out a coffee table with a stack of books on it, a few bookshelves along the walls, and two vases of flowers. One with a lone sunflower in it and the other filled with multiple varying flowers of different species. Then all the memories from the previous day flooded back into my head. I got up immediately and went to look for Winfrey. I went down the hallway and tried the first door I could reach. Would you look at that. There was Winfrey, all spread out on the bed and the blankets on the floor. I felt like I was intruding upon something. But I went inside anyways. It was untidy but not messy. A few things were out of place here and there but not enough to make you feel lie you were in a landfill of some sort. There was a desk stacked high with two stacks of papers and a tall lamp that was designed to maybe look like a tree in the corner of the room. The walls had some posters with types of tea on it. Then I noticed that the pattern of her blankets were various teacups. I never knew that Winfrey liked tea so much. Should I wake her? Or not? Maybe she knows how to wa-

Suddenly, a loud, annoying beeping noise filled the silence. It was incredibly irritating. Irritating enough to wake up Winfrey. She reached for a rectangular thing on her white nightstand and patted the top of it and the beeping noise immediately ceased. She sat up onto the bed groggily and when she saw me, she had a surprised look for about one second. Then she said, "Oh, good morning Lillian. Sorry about the mess."

"Uhhh, that's fine."

"Lillian you can go ahead into the bathroom to freshen up. By the way I got you a new tooth zapper."

"A tooth zapper?" It sounded absolutely evil. Like an instrument that a deranged dentist might use.

"It's not as bad as it sounds. It just zaps the bacteria right off your teeth. Tell me if you have trouble figuring it out."

After she said that, she made her way to the bathroom installed into her room.

I went the way that I guessed was where the bathroom was. There were only two doors that I didn't explore yet. I went into the first one. Inside was a very, clean bathroom. The toilet was pearly and shiny, the counter was very organized with a cup containing one strange instrument and a a bottle of what looked like strawberry scented liquid soap and a sink. There was a shelf with two towels on it, one green and one orange.The floor was covered by a fluffy blue rug and the walls were made of clean white tiles. I picked up the strange instrument. Along the handle it read "Zimmerman's Zappers" and it had a button next to it. At the tip of the device there was what looked like the shooting end of a death ray miniaturized. I pointed the device at the trash can and pressed the button. A thin blue beam shot out of it and the trash can, if that was possible, it looked even cleaner and even sparkled a bit. I suppose I was supposed to do this to my teeth. I pointed it at one of my front teeth and pressed the button.The spot it hit suddenly turned white. I did this with the rest of my teeth. When I was done, I found that my teeth didn't hurt in the slightest.

I went to find Winfrey. She was in the other room that I hadn't explored yet. There was bed, a nightstand next to that, and across from that a desk with a spinning chair and on the side there was a wardrobe. It looked like Winfrey's room but plainer and neater. "Uhh, Winfrey?" I said.

"Oh, hello dear. I'm just preparing your room. Why don't you hop along downstairs into the kitchen and fix yourself some breakfast?"

Breakfast. What a nice word that was. I wondered how breakfast was made in such an advanced place. Robots perhaps. When I got downstairs I assumed that the breakfast machines or whatever would be in the back since I had already explored the front of the tea shop. Next to the shelves of jars wee two swinging doors that you would see in cowboy movies.

I pushed open the doors and man, was it satisfying. Like you don't even know. So naturally, I turned around and pushed the door again and I did this again and again until eventually my stomach grumbled. So I pushed through the doors one last time and entered the, I guess it was a living room/kitchen? On one side of the room were like stoves and a large white rectangular prism people use to keep things cold and  and some other futuristic cooking appliances and on the other side were a couch and an armchair facing a table with a small circle with blue patterns on it and a few books and magazines. In the middle of it all was a small dining table accompanied by four matching chairs. There didn't seem to be a cupboard anywhere for storing ingredients. I opened up the fridge and inside were some eggs, two, balls I guess, of lettuce, a gallon of milk, some tomatoes and potatoes, some garlic, butter and a quart of vanilla ice cream. On the counter was a loaf of bread and some salt and pepper. For some reason, I registered these ingredients and knew that I had enough to make some gashouse eggs. I'm pretty sure I never ate them before and the name sounded unappetizing but, for some reason, I knew that it was a kick ass meal. If made properly that is. So I looked around for some utensils to make the eggs but I found nothing except those futuristic ones that look like they mixed batter and baked caked automatically than cut slices of bread.

Soon, Winfrey came in and saw me scurrying around looking for some cutting utensils.

"Oh, silly me", she said. She probably forgot to explain something. I felt dumb, having to have her explain everything.

"Lillian, you're supposed to use this", and she pulled a large silver tray out of the fridge that had buttons on the side. 

"So what do you want? Make sure we have all of the ingredients to make it though."

"Uhh, gashouse eggs."

"Ahh, gashouse eggs. They were a favorite of mine when I was a kid."

Then she pressed a button on the side of the tray and a keyboard slid out. Into the keyboard she typed the words gashouse eggs which appeared on the side of the tray. The suddenly, some nice, warm gashouse eggs appeared on top of the tray on a white plate.

"Wow! So you don;t even need to buy groceries!" I said.

"Well, no not exactly, you see, the food appearanator uses up our ingredients which is why I told you to make sure we have all the ingredients."

"Ohhh."

"Okay, now after your interview, we'll go and buy some things for your room. Lanterns and such."

"Okay, but before I eat I have one question. Are Wurnets born the same way as humans."

"Well, no. No one knows exactly how they're born. As soon as the mothers, well I don't know, do whatever it is to create one, then they leave them in the adoption center for someone to find and take care of. If they try to keep the baby, they'll get killed. Why are you asking?"

"Oh nothing, I just had this really weird dream and, you know what, never mind." I said, not wanting to let her know about the weird dream. I thought the figure in the dream was something like a mother figure. Maybe she was. Maybe she was running from an executor.

"Lillian dear? Go and change, it's nearly 12. There's a wardrobe upstairs in your bedroom. Sorry it doesn't have much clothes, I just ordered it and filled it with clothes I thought you needed for now."

I wolfed down the rest of the eggs and went upstairs into the room that Winfrey was preparing. As soon as I got in the light turned on making the room look cozier. I could see the room better now and it appeared that Winfrey had decorated most of the room in nice pastel colors. It looked so wonderfully nice. I went over to the wardrobe which was a light purple and opened it. Inside was a business suit for women along with a pencil skirt. I supposed these were the clothes that Winfrey was talking about. They were covered by a glass wall though. Then I noticed three buttons on the door. They read: Clean, Place and Choose.

Yet something else Winfrey didn't explain. I decided to experiment by pressing the Choose button. By pressing it, it let me choose what I wanted to take out. I chose the only items that were in there. The clothes were placed by robot hands(?) into a drawer connected. The drawer had a handle outside. So I pulled the handle and the outfit was inside the drawer. I put on the outfit and went back downstairs. Winfrey was waiting by the door.

"Oh Lillian you look so nice in that!", she said when she saw me. I had no idea what to say back. Winfrey didn't seem to think it was a big deal and just said, "Come on Lillian, let's go", and was out the door. And I had no choice but to follow.