By Anna Pellerin
The astronaut had to act quickly. Once he cut through the bag, water would swim around the cabin, suspended in the antigravity. If the astronaut wanted good tea, he had to be precise.
He’d been sent into outer space three days ago; satellites reported massive, unknown masses moving steadily closer to Earth, and at the speed they were progressing, scientists decided they couldn’t be ignored. It was the astronaut’s job to obliterate the asteroids “by whatever means necessary.” If it took crashing his spaceship straight through the rocks, the astronaut knew that was his duty.
When there were lulls in his hunting, he cultivated his brewing techniques.
His ship was stocked with freeze-dried tea, but he had yet to use a zero gravity cup. Before departing, the astronaut had wound through his garden to a trellised back corner. Tea leaves hung in staggered bundles, brittle planets constituting an aromatic solar system. Gingerly, he unwound twine knots securing his herbs. Packets of chamomile, mint, lemon, and bergamot fronds comprised his personal effects.
The astronaut selected a water pouch and grabbed the pair of scissors he used to open freeze-dried beef dinners and Neapolitan ice cream. He snipped through aluminum; droplets, beads, then one big bubble of water gurgled from the package. The water meandered around, colored the same silver chrome as the cabin. Drops flared red, yellow, green when they drifted in front of control panels.
Unfurling his bag of Darjeeling’s lip, the astronaut pinched enough sprouts between his fingers to fill approximately two tea bags—enough to accommodate the spread. Then he baseball-pitched the shriveled sprigs. Tea leaves burst from his hand in a firework, burnt-out sparks spinning slow-motion circles. The leaves drifted after the string of water drops, idly piercing their clear, curving surfaces. His tea began to darken, and the astronaut smiled.
A sonorous beeping sounded. He maneuvered between constellations of excess leaves to the control panels; one screen flashed in time with the beeping. At the top of the satellite’s range, a bulbous, pitted shape crept into sight. The astronaut set his ship’s course.
He turned back to see that his tea—now deeply amber—had flowed in front of a porthole. Earth was nestled along its edge, like a marble snug in a palm. The tea hung over his home, little drops of asteroid supposedly hurtling towards it. As the astronaut plucked the straw from the water pouch, he wondered how many others were also steeping tea right now. He hoped they would enjoy theirs as well.
Anna Pellerin is an LGBTQ+ writer from St. Martinville, Louisiana. She holds bachelor’s degrees in creative writing and English from Spring Hill College. Her short story “Broken Wing” received the college’s Richard S. Lynch award for best short story during the 2021-2022 academic year. Currently, Anna is an MFA student at Wichita State University specializing in fiction. She is the assistant managing editor for the university’s literary magazine, Mikrokosmos.
