Teabags and Writing

You ask me, my friend, what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a writer. I cannot tell you, but listen as I share this story and you may see a hint of life breathed into words...

Just now I made a pot of tea, and whilst doing so I thought to myself how the two teabags were in a fatal tryst, seemingly in their own world. I thought about how they wrought magic with their companionship, and I thought about the results of that magic poured from the fountainhead of the pot into our vessels, later to be consumed. We were consuming their love!

 

Whilst doing so, it made me consider unity and the cycle of life. You see, what we had consumed would, in time, be flushed away, and rejoin the water in the world (while the teabags would take a more direct route, via the compost bin). Later, that water would be treated, and some would return to the mains and my kettle, to be consumed again in due course.

 

Some more would end at the sea, swam in by the biggest whales and the smallest minnows, and may be evaporated. At which point that water would be carried by Zeus, Lord of the Sky and God of the Rain, to the corners of the earth, to fall there upon the ground. Some of that would feed a harvest of tea leaves, teaching it the value of defiance and the pleasure of looking toward the light, of which some would return to my table. There the tea bags would meet again, in their world amidst water, to die upon a kiss in a final, fatal embrace.

 

The oneness of this cycle made me consider timelessness. I thought about how, when we are at every possible stage of a process, time is simultaneously immutable and transitory, infinite and meaningless. Or, at least, how time is something that we wouldn’t recognise had it turned up at our door like an old friend.

 

I thought then about how time is merely a measure of change, how each second is a gram, each minute an ounce, each hour a metre, each day a kilo, each month a mile; every unit of measurement merely an abstract concept until either weighed or travelled.

 

Then I thought about how, for all the points of the compass there is only one direction, and time is death's only measure. I wondered how time would feel, had it known that it was the standard bearer of death. Would it carry its burden reluctantly? Or would it perform its duties willingly or without emotion? 

And although I do not pretend to be a writer (my conceit does not stretch so far), each pot has a story, each bag a tale to tell, every mundanity a hidden majesty, and all these things I thought whilst I poured your tea, my friend. 

Reviews

[Paul Underwood]

Haha, that's brilliant and definitely reflects the view from a writers eyes perfectly and in an almost poetic way too. Those are the very moments when having your trusty pen n pad ready to capture those essences before they pass comes in very handy.
I've lost count the amount of times I have looked at an item and was transported to a whole new world. It makes me wonder how many worlds are contained in a single item and the many paths it leads.