I present to you my entry
A Gale With Thunder, Wind, and Lightning, in a Teacup
(1500 words precisely)
Jimmy was a nice man. Perhaps this quality was within the twisted, bundled, fateful threads that between them explained why he was engaged in his present activity, namely wandering up Uppingham high street. Perhaps it wasn’t. Naturally, the ladies and gentlemen traversing that path haven’t all been saints; nevertheless, Jimmy’s errand seeking a café was hardly sinful. At least, it was hardly intended sinfully. As he ducked underneath the lintel, he erased guiltily his mental images depicting starving children staggering under sacks filled with tea leaves. Five such waifs stared at him, bleary-eyed, their camel behind them carrying his heaving sacks filled with caffeinated pleasure westward – the sea and then England and then eventually that small café in Uppingham being their fate. The image quickly dissipated, and he sniffed the air then requested a small cream tea (with milk, sugar free).
It is perhaps, at this stage in the narrative, a suitable time when the reader may glimpse Jimmy himself. His hair was thinning a little, his face perhaps wasn’t exuding the vitality it had displayed in his earlier years, but his wide eyes nevertheless peered at the murky depths inside his effete china teacup with that particular unsullied surprise at the universe frequently seen in humans aged between three and seven. Stalwart in never accepting the ravages that time had hurled in his path, Jimmy sipped his tea. It is telling, in illustrating this attitude, that he had left his wallet behind and paid the waitress with a tenner he kept tucked inside his hat in case emergencies struck.
Jimmy was (naturally given his eccentricity) English, and did artistic things with things and drank tea and went clad in summer shirts and lived near a large University. (Its name and this narrative shall never appear side by side in print, as the writer’s future alma mater is in an utter and vehement rivalry with it. This is expressed frequently in trials such as racing up a river at high speed thus displaying greater mastery in muscular and nautical arts, and such famed and deadly games as the fierce battles in University Challenge.) His residence was in fact within spitting distance, at least if the greatest spit ever measured is taken as this range. That spit, greater than a hundred feet, was definitely a thing Jimmy believed he might have bettered in his earlier days. Alas! Even with his mind still racing and active, the great artist’s spitting abilities had passed their prime.
Pleasantly, imbibing tea has never required and quite likely never will require spitting; Jimmy’s drink was thus undisturbed by his decreasing saliva-based abilities. What it was disturbed by instead was an aged man sneezing and staggering as he entered the small cafeteria. He nearly brushed Jimmy’s chair. Was he unaware that it was quite rude thus disturbing a man drinking tea?
Jimmy remained silent, but it was as if he had said it like a fired up thespian; the man scraped and shuffled backwards, head inclined. Immediately, Jimmy raised a hand in greeting, ensuring the elderly (and greatly bearded) gentleman was clear that he wasn’t angry. The bearded man blinked as a reply, then turned and gave the waitress his debit card. Milk and three sugars. Extra jam.
The nice thing this particular eating place had given Jimmy was less the tea, cake, and suchlike – in fact, just a break. It was an undeniable truth that there were things in life that aggravated any sentient being, and as a result Jimmy had headed Uppingham-wards (using a little used mapping system that firmly placed Uppingham as the entire planet’s prime grid reference, and might have added the remaining planets except that its designer believed the great distance between them and Uppingham Church made them irrelevant in any scientific study) thus escaping a particular bugbear that had been vexing him since nineteen ninety-five. That bugbear was a decidedly silly linguistic device which, as Universal High Letter-Master, he had banned in Uppingham’s vicinity in case he felt escaping it was necessary. This day was, thusly, his resting time as he checked whether his idea had indeed affected Rutland in any way at all.
Tea was still available. As was cake, with jam and cream. Having a knife as the singular available cutlery item was a little trying, admittedly, but the knack required when stirring his tea with it was attained with little real difficulty. The glass pane set in the near wall still displayed a surprisingly unaffected high street, with pavements and salesmen selling fruit and beer and many, many texts, tracts, and treatises. The primary impact Jimmy’s acts had in fact had was leaving several elderly gentlemen befuddled – having made humans part with cash all their lives and selling them a certain item, being restricted in naming such caused amusing difficulties. A sign advertising a “tract and text salesman” swung high and visibly, and a display urging the reader in where “atlases, pamphlets, reprints, essays, manuals and magazines” might be purchased. He had a better stratagem than a similar nearby trader – this latter had given up and was selling naught but bibles.
Jimmy had (as was vital in such an assessment) sauntered inside the pub earlier as he made his way up the street. There the effects were hardly devastating either. Given the plentifully available cider, gin, and beer, the men and girls at the bar were still entirely happy and were ably getting as drunk as ever. Salted peanuts were selling well, and despite cues and cue-balls having been discarded by necessity all this meant was that greater numbers were playing darts instead.
The learning establishments were having significant teething issues with the new system – this was an expected result, and Jimmy was happy that this was just a phase. Chemistry and physics teachers were frantically editing technical names (“fire air” returning in the chemical elements might have given the deceased Carl Scheele a little happiness at least). English was in a mess, and the newly renamed departments such as “Past Age Studies”, “Mapping and Earth Studies”, and “Natural Science” were in further disarray. There were still students, and teachers, and whilst it had taken a while “detainment times” had been reinstated as a disciplining system.
All in all, there were barely any issues.
The bearded gentleman retrieved his debit card and turned, facing Jimmy. The letter-master was a little taken aback when he realised the aged man’s intent included speech. Did this chap have him sussed? Was he angry? Was it likely that Jimmy might imminently face a tirade against his little experiment? Mind racing, Jimmy merely watched and listened as, nearly in stasis, time crawling, the man started speaking.
“Nice day, isn’t it?”
“What?” Jimmy was taken aback briefly, but then snapped quickly back, settling instantly in the affable artist’s mindset again. “Ah… yes, beautiful. Very sunny!”
“That it is, that it is. Funny it changes quick like that, was rain last week. It’s funny times, my Mrs says, and she’s a bright head thinking such things. All kerfuffle and t’aint a man jack really has a clue what’s happening half the time. Weren’t like this when I were a lad.”
“Yes, quite quite strange. Nice café this, isn’t it - rain and shine regardless!”
“Aye, indeed.” He smiled and yawned slightly, with the happy visage displayed when a man has unexpectedly started talking and succeeded in getting past the initial sentences with few significant failures. “Well, I better drink this tea – shan’t stay warm if I leave it!”
“Naturally.” Jimmy smiled warmly back, briefly resisting scratching an extremely vexing itch three centimetres behind his left ear until the man had turned away.
Blinking in the sunlight, the elderly man shuffled away and sat at a small table a few metres away. Jimmy’s eyes slid past him, admiring the beams in the sixteenth century ceiling. The building was certainly a fine specimen, and with all the abilities Jimmy was ably mustering, all his cleverness and magic that made letters dance like fireflies and ballerinas, he was nevertheless well aware that architecture required great genius. Teaching, and bartending, and waitressing, and trading and selling did as well – and he felt the Uppinghamites’ resilience in the circumstances made the fact yet clearer.
The ladies and gentlemen living in Uppingham had little idea what precisely was different between their settlement and the remaining small villages that carpeted England’s landscape. Jimmy knew, naturally; he had caused it, created and shaped the unusual variance in the English language that hung as a bubble within which was nestled Uppingham. As an artist, a letter-master, a man the entire human race truly had its creative juices invested in, it was his burden. All language was – such a beautiful thing, and yet flexible in ways few imagined. What man realised that life was even bearable when a full alphabet was absent? Few, and they were far between. And in truth, that was precisely the issue.
Jimmy sat back, eyes shut, and drank his tea.
