The man sat at the table. It was an old table, full of memories, about three feet by four feet, out of place in the new flat. It was worn, the varnish scraped away in places by cleaning attempts, the centre surface – which was covered with green tiles – showing a bit of dirt on the grouting. One green chair leg boasted an atrophied horizontal rung, almost completely gnawed away by the dog in his puppyhood. If the dog had gnawed the upright support, the chair would have fallen. As it was, it remained, able to hold the man, able to bear witness to youthful canine folly and the passage of time. The man rested his hands on the table, feeling the cool surface of the green tiles.
On the table was a teacup. The teacup was of the willow pattern. The man and his wife 'collected' willow, in the way that people who are neither wealthy nor particularly acquisitive collect things. Since he remembered this odd china pattern fondly from childhood, the man had bought the pieces one by one from the supermarket during a promotion. Each week, he had bought the one-dollar special that came with the purchase of groceries, first the starter set of plates, then the gravy boat, the salt-and-pepper shakers, and so on. Finally the cups and saucers. When the promotion had not yielded the shallow soup bowls he remembered so well, he had gotten into his car and driven into the Pennsylvania hills, to Zanesville, home of antique shops. There he had paid a premium price – two dollars each – for the shallow bowls. The 'antique' willow pattern – probably from the 1950s – was slightly different from the new. No matter, that would add to the charm of his collection. The man was satisfied.
The teacup came from the china cabinet. The china cabinet was another antique, purchased for two hundred dollars when the man was flush. The reason for the purchase had been twofold: the new house needed furnishing, and that cabinet was the exact twin of the one his grandmother had used in the old farmhouse in the hills. A poor man's treasure from the 1920s, probably bought from a mail-order catalogue with carefully-saved pennies by a dirt farmer who had survived traumatic brain injury and his hard-working wife. The smell of that cabinet when you opened the door was worth two hundred dollars. It was a TARDIS, that cabinet: it took the man back to a place that no longer existed. He kept expecting to smell coconut cake, the cheap packaged brand his grandmother always kept on a stack of plates. He hated coconut cake, but he missed the smell.
The teacup sat on its willow saucer. In the cup was pale tea, jasmine, from the tin the man had bought in memory of his Asian students, who always used to bring him tea. He knew what people said about this tea: that there was detritus in it. That nobody ever, ever sold Americans good tea. (Revenge for Boston?) That tea bought in a tin in America contained floor scrapings, mingled with insect larvae. He didn't care. The tea ball had been washed out. Only pale liquid remained in the cup.
He lifted the cup to his lips, and drank. The faint scent of the lemon took him back for a split second to the creperie in the Rathaus square in Bonn. A cold night, a warm drink. For a split second, he wished the willow cup were a glass one. A glezl tay... He drank it all, and set down the cup.
There was a worm in the cup. It was white, about two inches long. It lay there, glassine and unmoving. The man shuddered, reached out a probing finger, touched it in psychometric divination...where had it been born? Where had it fed, before being fed on, adding its essence to a cup of tea? Had it come from Asia?
It had, possibly. A rice field. More probably, given the geography of this place, a rice field in the Gullah country of South Carolina. The man held the offending object and bellowed.
'ELEKTRA! Please be careful with the dishes! There's a noodle in my teacup!'
The man sat at the table, laughing until the tears came.
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