pam-mentations.com

Some days Miss Anne Thrawpy comes to visit. She nestles down in my front room with a hot cup of strong black tea, lips puckered and sharp eyes piercing the steam.

Sometimes Miss Anne overstays her welcome. She measures my windows for blackout curtains, and paces the yard to measure for barbed wire fencing. You could just run for the hills, she advises, hew out a log hermitage. Hunker down for the winter and your winter years. Fade away on a proverbial ice flow, the cry of gulls trailing off like the whistle of a train overhead.

Miss Anne Thrawpy is a funny duck. She favours peace over hostility, but she scurries away at the first gesture of kindness. The neighbour who delivers a fresh-picked bag of apples. At that cue, Anne wraps her fox fur stole tightly around her neck, tips her feather cap, and marches out in search of cranky people standing on their lawns in bathrobes. She’ll accompany each inside and brew up a pot of bitter tea. Commiserate about “people who…,” and plot out some fantasies about how to set the world right or escape it.

Miss Anne is all about solidarity. The darker side of tea and sympathy. I invite her in sometimes. Her presence can be quite cathartic. And surprisingly wise. She’s been around, seen it all. I sneak a little sugar in her tea and coax out some stories. I don’t know, Anne, I prod, would the world be better off without people? Well now, she smiles, you tell me.