Henceforth, I will post two titles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You can either take two days to write one story, or you can truly do a story a day (with one day off, if I'm counting correctly).
Also, feel free to go backwards and do some of the titles you may have missed.
Happy Monday!
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The tea that can be drunk is not the true tea.
The chrysanthemum that can be spelled is not the true chrysanthemum.
Guanlin stared at her chrysanthemum tea. Two flowers floated in the cup. One was pale, the colour of the moon; the slender petals caught the chance rays of sunlight filtering through the tea and glowed. The other was bright, red and orange, like the sun burning low in the sky; it almost seemed to radiate its own power.
At first glance the two flowers appeared not to move. Guanlin had been holding her cup for a long time. There were no eddies, no currents. The red flower, however, took this stillness and made it seem like motion. Guanlin's eye would follow the energy in the flower's brilliant petals, and it would seem as though not just the flower, but the whole world had moved. As she looked, asking a more complete stillness of her own body than the earth asks of a mountain, she could see that the red flower did move. Out of the stillness of the tea, currents were born, though still small. Out of the stillness of the red flower, motion was born.
She focused on the pale flower, her eyes now accustomed to the tiny flows in the tea that seemed to radiate from the red flower. At first, she could see the pale flower sway back and forth, the petals waving ever so gently, like silken flags. However, the pale flower seemed to take the motion, and make it look like perfect stillness. As she looked, she realised that the flower did not move. It was still, all around it was still, and all motion was only an illusion, a trick of the eye.
Guanlin was confused. She looked back and forth between the two flowers, but although each kept its own nature intact, the tea surrounding them seemed to change as her perspective changed. She closed her eyes, and breathed. The sweet smell of the chrysanthemums soothed her - she relaxed - and opened her eyes again.
She laid aside her desires as she looked at the flowers. She laid aside the desire to know exactly where the flower was as she looked at the pale flower. She laid aside the desire to know exactly where the flower was going as she looked at the red flower. She laid aside the desire to see the two flowers as separate as she looked at the tea between the flowers, and as she relaxed, the two flowers seemed to become one. If she desired to see motion, the red flower would become apparent, but if she stilled her mind the pale flower would show itself. If she emptied her mind and did not desire to see anything, then the flower that appeared was both, and neither.
With this new focus, Guanlin was able to look deeper. Even the flower was not separate from the tea. One cannot have tea without the flower, she thought, and yet it is the tea that suspends and revives the flower. As she allowed her mind to empty of these thoughts, she saw that there was no tea. There were no flowers. There was true emptiness.
Inside the emptiness, a small room was born. It was comfortable; not warm, but not cold. In front of a small table knelt a woman; it was hard to say if she was young or old, for although she had the smooth face and gentle features of a young girl, the corners of her eyes were creased from a lifetime of smiles and her eyes were deep and dark with wisdom. The woman held a cup of tea in her hands, and contemplated it as though all the mysteries of the universe were contained within.
"That's an unusual piece."
"There aren't many left," Mary said. She touched it gently, and smiled. "They're more fragile than the common kind, as I'm sure you guessed, and they are prone to falling."
"Why? Is it a design flaw?" Harold touched it himself, and mimed raised his hands in a lifting gesture. "May I?"
"I'd rather you didn't," Mary said. "It may not be very valuable, but as you said, it is unusual, and as I said, there aren't many left. It would be troublesome to replace."
Harold pressed his lips together and turned his head away. "I'd be careful."
"I'm sure you would, and I hope you will realise that that's not the point."
"Do you - do you use it?"
"Of course. Do you see another iron around here? How else do you think I keep my immaculate self so well-dressed?" Mary indicated her dress with a long, flowing gesture. "I certainly don't have a maid to do such things for me."
"Right. You use this - maybe not valuable, but very rare artifact - to iron your clothes. This all, despite them having some kind of flaw that makes them fall often. What, are my big hands too clumsy for your taste, that I can't even pick it up?"
"Oh, don't get your feathers ruffled, Harold. Your hands are the very picture of grace and femininity." Harold glowered at her. "It has nothing to do with your hands, however - I simply don't trust you that much. Do you want to know what this crucial flaw is that makes them fall so often?"
"Alright," mumbled Harold. "Go on."
"Have you ever used an iron?"
"Not as such."
"It shows. Well, if you had, you would know that all irons share this flaw - they're dreadfully easy to knock off whatever you set them on, no matter how carefully designed they are to resist such treatment. I'm fortunate to have not had children; parents are even more aware of this than I. It's a curse inherent to the nature of irons, and I daresay it goes against the very rules of nature itself to allow the existence of an iron that cannot be easily upset."
"That's - well, that's crazy. You're suggesting there's some kind of curse on all irons? What, there's a cranky witch out there who accidentally ironed a crease into her broom?"
"Now you're just being silly. I was not using the word curse literally, I was adorning my language, and that is why I speak much more prettily than your crude sarcasm. No, I am not suggesting any kind of supernatural force. I am simply stating a fact. I do not know why it should be so - I know only that it is."
"I still don't see why I can't pick it up."
"Because now you know that it has nothing to do with weight distribution or anything similarly analytical you might be able to tell from picking it up, so you have no need. Besides, your big, clumsy hands - as you put them - are dirty."
"They are not!"
"Oh?" Mary raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you consider that shirt ironed, too?"
"I've had enough of this." Harold turned and strode to the door, stopping only to collect his hat. "Good day to you."
"But Harold, don't you want to know why it's made of glass? I was under the impression that is why you are here."
He turned around. "Fine. Why is it made of glass?"
Mary smiled. "I don't know. I was hoping you could tell me."
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