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Hot Tea, Hot Tongue.

I burned my tongue today. I thought I had mastered the art of drinking hot tea on a hot day. But instead, all I got was a hot tongue.

Now, it feels sensitive everywhere. My taste buds feel fried. I had savored the burn when I sipped the sweet, hot tea. But when I sat down to ponder whether life needed a purpose at the reading club, all I could feel was the afterburn of my poor tongue.

Life and its purpose felt so trivial at that moment. The sting in my mouth made everything else fade away. I tried to find some meaning in the pain, but it was just a reminder of how delicate we are. I couldn't romanticize this pain. I could only feel it as it was—wretched and annoying and simply uncomfortable. I couldn't wag my tongue around in public, and I didn't want to do that anyway.

I bought an ice cream to cool it. That helped. The cold sweetness was a relief, a temporary escape from the discomfort. But then, with my sore throat, it was just a trade-off. A burned tongue and a sore throat. The hot soup satisfies the former, but the latter complains.

I don’t know what to do with this mix of a situation. It felt like life seemed to mock my attempts to find deeper meaning. I wanted to sit quietly with my thoughts, to explore grand ideas and find some truth, but my body had other plans.

I simply don't understand how my parents and grandparents can drink boiling hot tea with such ease. Gulping it down on a hot day like it's heavenly. They must have charred throats and tongues. Perhaps that's why, with time, the nerve endings of their mouth must have short circuited and its easier to gulp down the hardest of things because what is to be felt isn't felt at all. 

Then how do they make the most flavourful food on a daily basis. I don't know. All I am left with is more questions and this unforgettable sore throat and burnt tongue. I want to scrape my throat with a butter knife but of course, I wouldn't do it.  

It still hurts. The ice cream was a brief relief, a distraction. The pain persists, refusing to be ignored. It sucks, plain and simple. Hopefully, it gets better with time. Until then, I'm stuck with this annoying, uncomfortable reminder of how easily things can go wrong.

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