Tea, the End of the World, and the Proper Care and Feeding of Angels

beware the oncoming storm, for lo, your peeps will drown in earl grey

While at Clarion in 2006 I wrote (the first week) a story titled, at various points, “The Angel and the Apocalypse (and Me),” “Revelations Over Coffee,” and “The Starbucks at the End of the World.” (These titles were met with various degrees of disdain, but no one ever suggested anything better.) It involved both armageddon and tea. For the record, angels prefer green tea to coffee on account of the caffeine, and they can’t hold their tequila–but once they’ve lost their wings due to Inappropriate Behavior Upon the Eve of the End of the World, they may crave caramel macchiatos. Do not forget to include this information in your Proper Care and Feeding of Angels handbook.

In any case, I thought of this because of Neil Gaiman’s call for tea and armageddon pictures, which I shamefully have not yet contributed to due to traveling (I am back in Nashville as of last night, by the way) except by way of blogging. However, I present this photograph to the right that I found on Flickr while pontificating on various wrong ways to eat peeps, and somehow it does make me think that the world is ending.

Therefore, I present (in the manner of a word I remember from my fanfic research), a “cookie” of said story from three years ago, which I do really plan on trying to publish one of these days now that I’ve finished law school and can think about writing something other than case briefs…

“I watch people,” he said. “That’s what I do. I just like to drink tea while I do it. And besides, it amuses me how, for a split second, it seems like their lives revolve around that tiny cup of coffee. You people have such bizarre perspectives.”

“You know, for someone who acts all holier than thou, you’re incredibly vain.”

He looked smug. “I am holier than you.”

To make my point, I pulled a newspaper out of my messenger bag and plopped it down on the table in front of him. His tea jumped slightly and splattered a drop, smudging the print. I poked my finger at an article in the Living section. “APOCALPYSE PREDICTION: END TIMES BEGIN TOMORROW” it read. It was The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.