What Matters
an excerpt

“Why hello there chum.” A voice, a disembodied voice. Friendly. Female. No wait. Not disembodied. Charlie’s vision began to clear up. What was a blinding bright white flash seconds ago was coming out to be a very white room. He was looking up while lying down. Above him was a table. And a woman sitting at the table.
She held up a cup. “Care for a cup of tea? I just made a pot.” She looked a lot like Nancy, but taller and cheerier. She was also dressed in a more eccentric fashion. There was an aviator’s cap including goggles on top of her head and she wore a long brown trench coat that looked extremely old and won thin.
“What the…?” Charlie mumbled. Something was going wrong. This was not part of the story. “Where the hell am I?”
The woman above him smiled. “You’re aboard The Rover my friend. You don’t look too hot either.”
“Yea I don’t feel too hot.” Charlie said with a sneer. This lady liked to point out the obvious.
“Well if you ask me the first step to feeling hotter would be to get up off the floor, sit in a chair like a civilized person and have a cup of tea. It’s quite good. Strawberry flavored!” She took a sip and raised her cup as if to demonstrate how good it was.
“Well fine then.” Charlie managed to get out as he struggled to stand up. His legs were shaky and his head was pounding. He groped around for a chair and pulled it out, just barely landing his bottom in the seat. He let out a great sigh.
The woman poured a cup and set it in front of him. She watched eagerly.
Charlie raised his eyebrows. He looked from the woman back to the cup. Why should he trust her? She did look awfully excited for him to drink. That definitely said something.
“No thank you.” He said, “I’m not really very thirsty. More nauseous actually. Liquids wouldn’t sit well.”
“Nonsense!” She exclaimed, “Tea solves everything. Just drink.”
“No really…I can’t.”
She looked about to push him more but then decided against it. “Well fine. Don’t drink. Your loss.” She took his cup and drank it in one swig. Charlie watched in disgust.
“Um…no offense…but where the hell is this?” He asked when she was done with her extreme ingestion of the tea.
“I already told you. You’re onboard the Rover.” She said proudly.
“Yes…but what is the rover?” He asked rudely.
She frowned. “You mean you haven’t heard of it?”
“No.” Of course he hadn’t. Why should he have?
“It’s only the finest ship to sail the galaxy.” She smiled.
“Excuse me but did you say the galaxy?” Oh god. This was really not part of the story.
“Of course I did. What else would a ship sail on?” Now she was the one looking confused.
“You mean…we’re in space then?”
“Yes.” She said impatiently. “You were trying to flag down a ship weren’t you?”
“Um no. I was getting a soda at a gas station. I only just came back home. I was supposed to go with the…” Charlie stopped. This wasn’t making any sense.