One Last Tea

One Last Tea:

It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I just got in the mood for some writing that wasn't for a Medieval fantasy website I write for. I remember being told a while back that my writing is cathartic. Can't say I disagree.

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One morning, North awoke to find a small brown envelope sealed with blue wax sitting on the ugly red rug just underneath the ugly brass mail slot on his ugly redwood door. There wasn’t anything special about the flat that he had taken residence in, but it was loaded with character, and character was always a massive draw for North. Character was the thing of stories. But that is not what is important right now. Opening the letter, North found inside the letter he always received at the beginning of the month. It was an invitation to High Tea with South, West and East. These days, however, the invitations had been stacking up on the dinning room table, tucked against the wall in the lounge (where it had no place being). If his flat had a fireplace in it, the stacks of unanswered invitations and junk mail would no doubt have been making a permanent residence in it.

The note said the same thing it always said and was written in the same ink that never looked the same colour every time you looked at it:

“There is a forest that is made up entirely of birch trees in a land where the four seasons converge on one another and live in a rotating harmony. With each step one takes, another time of the year passes in front of them like a kaleidoscope of different weather and colours.

If you take a left at the iron bench with the old man reading tomorrow’s newspaper beside the stone bridge with the gold doorknob in the centre, both seemingly placed with no purpose whatsoever, you’ll find a set of cliffs that overlook a wooded valley.

Follow the pathway through the cliffs until you find a lake underneath stars in a dark blue sky, each one twinkling in colours beyond imagining. If you can’t see the stars, you’re at the wrong lake. Feel free to wait around or splash about until the stars do show, when they do, you’ll have found the right lake.

Once you have reached the lake, walk around it until you reach the hill on the other side. Be sure to walk around the lake using the right path. If you don’t you won’t reach the hill. You’ll know you’ve taken the correct route when it doesn’t start to feel like you’re wasting your time.

You’ll meet Rain along the way, and that’s fine. Be sure to take her up on her offer for tea. It isn’t fancy but North certainly seems to enjoy it. Try not to let Night distract you though. He is always up to something no good. No doubt bolstered by his belief that nobody can see what he is doing during his favourite hours.

When you’ve reached the top of the hill, you’ll find a cast iron table made up of swirling floral patterns with a compass in the centre, surrounded by four chairs. If the table and chairs are not there, you’ve probably arrived on the wrong day, as high tea is but once a month and it is often difficult to peg anyone down with their busy schedules. If you’ve timed everything just right though, make sure you’ve got a large mug, as they are the best kinds, and take a seat, cards and stories will begin shortly.

Please be ready to share a new story.

Forgetting that you’ve already told a story does not count as new.”

It had been a year since North had seen his friends and part of him wondered if they still met for tea. He had asked the same question before, but it never seemed enough to get him to leave and join them. Things were a bit more complicated those days.

The few times that West had gotten a hold of North, the conversations had done nothing but pester North to the point utter frustration. Father Time goes about his work with little concern for what we might like frozen outside of his task and as a result, things change, and people change. Those that we used to find ourselves so easy to relate to, often become people we dread meeting. West and North just didn’t have a great deal to talk about anymore and North just wanted to continue doing his thing without it being interrupted. South was another story. North had not spoken to her in a year and the last time he had, it was not as sweet a parting as some may like.

As one might expect, North and South, despite their differences, loved each other a great deal. Not romantic love, I wouldn’t disgrace a word like love so much as to limit it to just romance. If you were to listen to North prattle on about the times he had spent with South, one might think that the two were romantically inclined to one another, but their relationship was so much more than that.

North tossed the invitation onto the table, another for the collection of discarded letters. Making his way to the front door, North tossed a grey hoody over himself and pulled the hood over his shaggy black hair and made his way outside and toward the nearest park. Lost in the forest of his thoughts, he didn’t know notice when he had stopped walking in the park and started walking through the birch forest. It was only when one wasn’t paying attention that they would find themselves walking in a place they didn’t recognize until they were able to grab their bearings. North continued walking, being sure to follow the directions to the cast iron chairs and table to the letter. It wasn’t long before he found himself at the top of the hill.

Waiting for him there was his seat among the four at their private table. Three of the chairs, North’s, West’s and East’s, were covered in dirt and overridden with a creeping ivy. They almost didn’t look like chairs anymore and if anyone was to happen by them, they would look like just another piece of the landscape, save for a piece of the table that was very much clean, and the chair that looked as though it was still used. North wasn’t surprised. Even with himself and the others showing up, South would no doubt continue to visit. Heaven knew that woman needed a place where she could be by herself.

“Didn’t think I would see you here.”

Her voice rang out into the empty hill from behind North. He turned around to see the friend he had not seen in just over a year. Not much had changed about the way she looked. North tended to look more relaxed, verging on the realm of scruffy while South could look relaxed, but there was order to her, everything about her worked well. North always believed that South was the very definition of together, even if she didn’t like him thinking so. She was wearing her knitted cap over her long, light brown hair and a blue jacket. She stood there with a blank expression on her face and a portable coffee mug, no doubt filled with some different and sweet tasting tea.

“Didn’t think I would be here. Had to show at some point and I suppose I was curious to know you or the others still showed up.”

“I just come here to get away these days.”

South was always busy with something. At least this was North’s evaluation of her schedule. He was a bit biased about it though. South was someone that he could always hang out with on a moments notice. The two always seemed to have time for one another…until the months leading up to North’s departure east. The two just seemed to drift and North found himself loathing her and getting more and more annoyed by the fact. When he finally did leave, North was thrilled to have left the drama, including South, behind. He hadn’t given her much thought in the year he had been away. It wasn’t until North had gone to hang out with an old friend, that he started to think about South.

“It’s been a while friend.” South walked over toward North and gave him a big hug. It felt awkward, but North eventually eased into it and gave his old friend a hug to match.

“Yes it has.”

There was so much running through his mind. When he had started to think about South again, North had worked hard to bring up only negative memories of her in order to keep his feelings in check, to keep their relationship in check. It didn’t seem to matter though. For every piss poor reason he could find to keep her at a distance, he found a shed load of amazing memories to combat them. He remembered the time they first danced; the time he drove her and her car home when she was feeling sick; the time he drove her around in a golf cart, which coincidentally was the first time he swore in front of her. North pulled the creeping ivy off his chair and wiped the dust off the seat and sat down at the table. He waved his hand and offered a seat to South.

“I half expected to find West here.”

“He stopped following me around and pining after me when he started taking interest in East.”

“No way.” North was wide eyed and shocked, “West and East have been seeing each other?”

South laughed and shook her head, “No, West likes East, but East is off doing her own thing.”

“You’ve got to feel better about that. It only took three years, but that no finally stopped meaning maybe. Could you ever imagine?”

“That would just leave you and me to eventually fall for one another.”

North smiled, but deep down the comment annoyed the hell out of him. He and South loved each other, it couldn’t be denied. That love extended into a kind of friendship that was enviable, it just never seemed to extend into that place beyond. Not romance; romance tends to be about two people living off the small spark that starts the process of love. Sacrifice, the kind of love the requires to people to give over themselves to the other, placing all regard on the other and not themselves. Perhaps the two of them were afraid that whatever incompatibility existed between the two of them was enough to make that sacrificial kind of love a frightening place.

South’s comment was empty and it was just the kind of thing that pushed North away; made him secretly wish he had more about South that he didn’t like. Not enough to push him to that place though. Not enough to stop him from talking to her through the night and to catch up with what she was doing. Not enough to stop him from enjoying their time together and eventually leave for his house, pouring over his thoughts, frustrated and angry.