The Controversial Teacups

By Nikolay Dimitrov Petkov (XI d)

A remarkable work! It caught our attention in the May’2021 short story competition titled ‘Awakening’!

To Ze

The eyes of the teacups abruptly turned towards me, wide-open. Until then, I had been pretty sure that they were too shy to look around. Apparently, I was wrong – they all had that unimaginable, fixed stare!

The teacups watched me in silence. The room was still dark. It was that particular moment of the day when the sun was almost completely hidden behind the clouds. It never failed to remind me of a dying person with stilled breaths… The whole world was painted in pink and orange.
For the teacups, perhaps, that would forever remain as their only moment of some naturally colourful embarrassment.

“It reminds me of the taste of peaches,” one of them, sprinkled in yellow, said cheerfully. It was made of polka-dot blue porcelain and had more of the shape of a mug.
There was no answer. All the teacups were dangling slighltly on a medium-high cactus in the centre of the room.

“When?” another one asked, eventually, probably trying to get noticed.
“I cannot say for sure,” the blue one with yellow polka-dots explained. Then it added: “Whenever.”

A teacup, all in brown and black, set somewhat afar in the background, sighed heavily. It looked very emotional and proud.
“There is no sense in anything. In fact, I am as doomed as no one before me has ever been!” It went on, rather pathetically: “Unfortunately, I can’t help it. There’s nothing I can do about it – every single try just kills me.”
For a while, it seemed unsure of how to continue. Soon after, its voice came out, uttering the words a bit more slowly:
“You just… have to feel… the pain.”
There was silence again.
“However,” it continued, “I hope my strength will never demolish somebody from inside, like…”
It stopped for a second, and went on: “But then, it always comes so chaotically. The pain. Every single time!”

The yellow polka-dot teacup swayed on its branch. The others stood still and silent.
Somehow, the cactus had as many branches as the cups needed, just to hang there.

“Do you think,” the black-brown cup swayed a little, to face the others, “that it loves me?”
“W-ho does?” the one still waiting to be acknowledged hurried to stutter.
Initially, the over-sensitive brown cup seemed to be unable to answer. In a few seconds, though, it sighed:
“My pain.”
It made a short pause, before adding, “I hope.”
“I guess it’s worth letting your pains destroy you, isn’t it?” its sad voice went on. “With each and every new dying second that we breathe in, as it passes away…”

The sun outside had already hidden behind the horizon. The dense clouds of the approaching morning fog were hanging like curtains from the sky.
An orange teacup spoke up, making the others jump a little.

“Ha! But surely, you must do!”
It was facing the black-brown cup, as it continued:
“You really do love them all, right?”
That orange fellow was a rather strange type of cup, with eyes so wide-open that they made it look quite different from the rest. Its voice was hoarse. Actually, it sounded like an old woman’s voice. That seemed almost puzzling.
“They’re so-o-o enormous,” it added, and there was a long pause. “Don’t you perceive them as such?”
In fact, it was not waiting for any of the cups to agree, it was rather wishing one of them to deny the statement. Anyway, it soon continued:
“So painfully intertwined with one another, and still – so alone…”

“Who are they?” a tiny green cup asked somewhere from behind, all of a sudden.

“Well-well… Isn’t that the old incessant question? And so inspiring,” said the orange cup. It had been biting its upper lip for some time, its face expressing both anger and some uncommon eagerness. Yet, there was another feeling as well. Something undefinable and quite distant appeared to be controlling its face.
“The joy of all that biting! It looks good on our faces, don’t you think so?”

The cups kept silent.

The orange one went on: “Everything rotates around that apple coloured in green and red. It’s the only thing that has ever existed – in both such colours.” The orange teacup suddenly swung on its branch, and continued:
“Well, actually, the same colours…”

The other cups listened in a trance. They slowly started breathing unanimously, like a silent choir, as if succouring the orange one.

We have to hate it. Maybe we do. Who says that we should? What do we really hate? Can we hate it, indeed? …

The orange one tried to sneer, and… it succeeded.
“Why not?” it asked. “Dive into your own perceptions, look around and figure out everything!” While happily announcing that, a vivid smile appeared on its face. Strange how, just a second ago, it was about to grin…

The lips of all cups were firmly stuck, their eyes closed.
The cactus swivelled carefully around its centre.

April 2021