The tiny bowl of sugar cubes was already put out on the table. Kinza noted that the water was starting to boil, she tore open a teabag of the masala chai and let the contents spill into the water, and then repeated the process with a second bag of the tea. She turned off the stove, and took out the bottle of rum from the fridge. “Maybe I will just eyeball it,” and she poured out a glug of the liquid into the stout glass. Strained the golden tea into a teacup that had a riot of roses etched all around it.
Kinza now sat down with her sheaf of papers, dropped a sugar cube in her tea. “How do we know we are done with a place? Diya was not sure if the upcoming breakfast meeting was a suitable time to inform Aman that she was joining the research team at San Diego, and would be giving up her room in the Old Town soon.”
Kinza abandoned the papers and turned her attention to the rum. She tried a minuscule sip of it, and let it slide down her throat. She decided to gift the bottle to Luis who brought in the newspapers to the hotel. In the morning she would place the bottle in the basket that Luis took out everyday after he was done delivering the day’s papers. She took out a notecard and wrote a small thanks in what she hoped was an anonymous handwriting. It would not do to give random middle aged men any strange ideas by presenting them with rum bottles. Luis was a sweet person, but she wanted to go about her life without any unwonted complications.
The story she was writing was turning out to be too common now, so she felt a little dissatisfied and decided to plot to somehow get Aman to break his literal bones and be stuck in a hospital while Diya just packs her bags and moves to San Diego without a word. That seemed more satisfactory for the moment.
She finished her tea, and was thoughtful for a moment. The glass of rum had drops of condensation on it and looked very beautifully golden. The sunset outside her window was almost complete.
Extra points if you can guess the song in the title.
life-moonlighter 