Among Giant Leaves: Magical Realism

Paradox Tea

There was never a time Amla and I didn't get together over Yerba Mate tea, even before we were born. The tea itself is the key to this paradox, being particularly flavorful. The liquid is so hot and dark that our faces reflect back to us through the steam changed in the ways that make for excellent conversation and laughter like children as yet unborn, smiles of the recently dead, and memories of the distant ancestors who cycle into our lives again and again through their grandchildren.

This tea cannot be bought in plastic bags inside boxes in big stores. The tea must be pulled from the ground with all one's strength, pulled and pulled, into the night, under the moonlight, all one's different selves at once, until the plant decides it is time, until it feels the extent of its own love. Then, it will gently disengage from the earth as if it had no roots at all.

It must be boiled without looking at it. It must be poured into cups made of clay. It must be drunk on the same day as an animal has died while looking at one in the eyes.

A songbird I was watching and smiling at, which a mean village child shot with a slingshot for sparse meat, died after violent spasms today.

Crying, I spanked the little boy. I told him if he does it again, I will eat him right up. I believe he knew that was not true, but it will give him something to dream on.

Amla and I drink tea today, together in her small round house, which is shaped like a turtle, the rain coming down over its shell, and dripping music around us onto the yellow flowers, which have grown even since this morning. She reaches out and touches the back of my hand, where the skin has grown complicated with age. My body believes time exists. She gathers and pets my palm as if it were a silly animal.

I lay my hand on her head, and she turns her smooth face toward mine. We stare at each other as if into the tea and steam arises between us, obliterating the sensation of being in space and time. We sigh, and we are gone.

We spin around on the merry-go-round in the corner, our heads back, our dresses loose. Then, we spin the opposite direction. We are now the same age as each other, which is no age. Texture of skin is irrelevant.

We are like merry-go-round tigers. Versions of us echo behind us and push the merry-go-round on and on. We spiral inside our lives more tightly. We must get to the center where nothing moves. We put our heads together over the center of the circle, staring in each other's eyes. We do not grow dizzy. We are the animals that die.