The tea was gone. Vanished. Vaporized.

In other words, the tea had disappeared into thin air.

“Are you kidding me?” he frowned, looking around frantically. Was this a serious case of amnesia? No, he had never had problems like that. Naturally, he had been absent-minded once in a while. Something…is…wrong. No! I moved it away and forgot about it. That’s it.

He tried to recall his movements around the room. He had sipped the tea, and had enjoyed the taste of it. Then he had stood up, walked around to the bookshelf, and pulled out a novel. He intended to read today. Kate had gone to work.

Kate. He had been unkind to her this morning and had pressed her neck and pushed her against the wall for saying she was sure he was cheating. Yes, he was cheating, but he didn’t want her screaming at him every morning.

She had chosen to stay with him and would have to put up with his ways.

But first things first. He was totally puzzled. Maybe he was getting terribly absent-minded.

He walked out to the kitchen, now searching for the cup of tea. If this was amnesia, it was a bad case of it! It wasn’t there. He even looked into the fridge, getting more and more baffled. Hot tea in the fridge? Madness. But where the hell was the tea he had been drinking a minute earlier.

“I don’t remember leaving the living room. What am I doing in the kitchen?” he grumbled to himself, and went back. He walked over to the bookshelf, and began to scan the room, even the window-sill.

The wall-clock striking nine A.M. nearly made him faint with shock. Then he smiled ruefully.

Just then he heard a door close softly. It sounded like the bedroom door, hidden from him from where he stood near the bookshelf. His heart skipped a beat and then began to race. He stood rooted on the spot, trying to gather the courage to go and check. A burglar? A burglar who stole even cups half full of tea?

“I’m losing my mind,” he growled, and grabbed a long metal rod from beside the bookshelf.

He grabbed the TV remote and switched off the TV, which had been on at a low volume. Now he listened, so keenly his ears almost hurt. He moved slowly to a place where he could see the bedroom door. It was open! And now he heard a movement.

“Kate?” he called. Of course it was Kate! Playing games!

There was silence. And now the radio in the bedroom was on. Kate, of course! He moved to the bedroom door and in one glance realized that there was no one in sight. There was no other adjoining room, not even a shower within. She would have to come out of the bedroom to go to another room.

“Kate!” he yelled, and switched off the radio. The silence was deafening…and frightening.

Just then he heard the sound of footsteps in the living room, then the front door shutting with a click.

He walked out, sweating and the metal rod shaking in his unsteady hand. The door was shut. He found that he didn’t have the courage to run to the door and check, yet he felt that it was even more scary inside the house. As he began to walk to the door, he noticed from the corner of his eye that the cup was on the coffee table!

His breath whistled through his lips and his muscles tensed. Somebody had switched on the radio in the bedroom, taken the tea away and brought it back, and may have left through the door.

He walked gingerly towards the cup of tea, as if walking on eggshells. He peeped into it as if it contained something dangerous, and now he noticed that it was empty. He was positive that the cup had had tea in it when he left it for the bookshelf.

Suddenly he panicked and ran to the door, scared to remain in the house. He opened it and looked out on to the lawn and the hedge. And the short driveway to the gate. No sign of anyone.

Just then he saw a brown, torn envelope near the door that sent an alarm into his confused mind. He gaped. The black writing on the envelope in his writing confirmed to him that this was the envelope. The envelope with fifty thousand dollars that he had hidden so well for a year. He would invest that money in a surefire deal that would not fail. It had taken him three years to save it. He would never touch it until he knew the deal would not fail. He had his reasons for not wanting to bank it, and one reason was that he actually had this case going on in court where he had been sued for forty thousand by his former employer. He was the money’s custodian when it disappeared, but he had not saved that money. He had not learned to save until he found himself jobless and having to do short contracts with his interior design portfolio. He didn’t want to own any known assets. What if the court ordered the bank to hand over the money?

His panic overcame his fear about the unseen visitor. A thought flashed through his mind as he ran towards the bedroom. Kate! Who else? But how did she know where the money was?

He grabbed his cell phone as he passed the coffee table and dialed furiously as he entered the bedroom.

“Hello! Kate! Have you just been here in the house?”

“In the house?” she yelled. “Who wants to stay in the damn house with you, cheating pervert? One of these days I’m walking out, and…”