Saturday's Storyteller: No Prompt
by Belinda Roddie This is how it starts: A bottomless pot of tea on an unheated stove. The coldness of a brew that's meant to taste like seasons greetings, but instead the cold water reminds you of salty oceans from small, personal reservoirs. Work begins at sunrise. If you're lucky, you'll feel appreciated for your efforts one out of every twenty times. A compliment typically disappears into a black hole, a gesture of gratitude brushing fingers against a wall. It has been a long time since you've been told, "Thank you," for being where you are. You pour yourself a mug of stale leaves. You read fortunes that are missing both the second and the second to last words, so you don't know if the future is positive or negative. In your living room, it is dimly lit, and frigid. A stand-up comedian reminds you of how silly it is to be human. You laugh, only because you wish you could forget you were such a fragile carbon lifeform. Work ends at sunset. When