Tea Helps

The universe is an egg. It's starting to crack. Someone had better put the kettle on. Everyone knows the universe is an egg - it's settled science, it's in the schoolbooks, the children paint it on things. Inside is a sun; around the sun, a ring; and on the inside of the ring lives a species that argues about the cost of fish, builds bridges, and forgets to feed the cat. Every so often the egg does a thing called a Quickening. The bread stops rising on Tuesdays. The cats all turn and stare at the same patch of nothing. And the gentleman in row three of the Council chamber goes slightly pale. This one is going to be the big one. It will not be met by heroes. It will be met by a baker who reads the cosmos in her sourdough, a three-person government office whose entire job is to notice things and write them down, an astronomer with a chart, a furious engineer, a priest about to break with his faction, a great many children and cats, and a truly remarkable amount of tea. Not one of them can stop what's coming. Every one of them intends to be there anyway. Because that's the work. And the work is the work.

Pages: 398, Paperback, Independently published