Tea Stall at Dusk

The stall is the kind that has no name and needs none. Two benches, a kerosene stove, a kettle that has been on the stove since before I was born. The owner pours from a height that no manual would teach you, and the tea arrives already half-cooled, which is the point.

I had been walking for three hours and the light was the colour of old brass. I sat down on the end of the bench and ordered without speaking; he had seen me before. While I waited I watched a schoolgirl in a uniform two sizes too large negotiate, with great seriousness, a single glass to share with her younger brother.

The picture is not of them. The picture is of the kettle.