Meeting of Brothers-1

The café is quaint. The man who built it never had any plans for it, just needed something to fill the space between the Italian restaurant and the sushi place. So he squeezed a small shop in there,  to bridge the gap. Later it had caught the attention of some romantic, the owner of the café. The owner fell in love at first sight. She saw the potential in that door between two restaurants, the little misfit, the runt of the litter. No one wanted it, except her. Behind the door she imagined the personality of the building. When she opened the door she found layers of dust piled upon a forgotten project. Someone once had plans for this building, but they were long gone. The owner though, she saw something more beneath the dust.

In her imagination she reached out into the future and brought into being an image of her café. It was as a home to the eccentric. There in the corner she imagined the writers, the artists, those with dreams and passions. In this building she could make a sanctuary for them. She could gather them like birds to her hand, all the while admiring their beauty and their songs. She decided this was the place for her café.

                With a characteristic tenacity she  brought her dream to life. Into the cramped space she fit plush, faded chairs, perfect for sinking into and thinking ponderous thoughts. Small tables pushed up close to the chairs, but what the café lacked in legroom it made up for in homeliness. If one looked up into the shadows of the claustrophobic room then they could see the muses sitting in the rafters, just waiting to bestow inspiration upon waiting artists.

In the back the owner had set up her tea counter. She was a lover of fine and exotic teas. They sat in rows and rows of tins. All loose leaf, all carefully selected. Every day she would make a new blend, a tea of the day. Then she would take her brightly colored chalk to the blackboard in the back, giving name and story to the blend. Her letters swooped around each other, whimsically. She would serve the tea from beautiful tea sets. It was her hobby, the collection of unique, interesting, and beautiful tea sets. The sets varied greatly, some were tall, some squat. Some had graceful handles that arced over the pot, while others had no handles at all. There were the pots made especially for the blossoming tea, made of clear crystal so the flower was visible to all as the petals unfolded themselves one by one, releasing its spice and flavor into the warm water . The process was almost mystical, as if some deity had designed to transform this simple water into a drink of dreams.

                In the mornings she would arrive before the rising of the sun. Her keys would scrape in the lock, and as she opened the door the bells would tinkle and she would walk in, the floorboards creaking beneath her feet.  It was only a matter of minutes before she would flip the sign on the door, inviting people in. The first customers wouldn’t stay long. They were the early risers, the people who had places to go and jobs to work. They would enter and exchange a few pleasantries. They would take their tea; clasp it tightly in their hands and hurry out, shuffling away down the street.

Midday would bring in the sitters. The first one would take a window seat, settle down with his tea set and begin to scribble furiously. The owner would come over periodically, to check on him, to refill the pot, and make sure he was happy. Then with a smile she would turn away, leaving him to his creations.

Late afternoon and early evening were arguably the busiest times of day. But for this café busy could mean quiet. In fact it was an unspoken rule that excessive noise was prohibited. There was only one hour of the day when the rule no longer applied. The owner simply referred to it as “The Break”. A musician might come in and play as the tea-drinkers spoke to each other, sharing stories and asking about their respective progress ( “Hey Jill, how’s the book coming?”, or “ Have you found a publisher yet?”) Some people preferred not to talk about their creations, and that was alright too. The world is infinite and there are many things to speak on. 

The café stayed open late into the night, later perhaps than was truly reasonable. However, the owner loved her customers, loved their presence, and loved their work, that to disturb them in their business was a horrendous crime for her. So she stayed and they stayed too. For that they loved her. They appreciated what she had created here, admired it for what it was, as much a piece of art as their books and paintings. The owner and her customers shared a beautiful symbiotic relationship.

                No one ever found out who killed her. 

                She had been shoved against the china cabinet and the teapots had fallen on her in a cascade, some shattering against her skull and some hitting and bruising her body. The tea she had been carrying had dropped and splattered all over the floor. She fell into the steaming pool, then, dizzy and disoriented, tried to crawl away. The murderer stopped her quickly, driving a knife through her belly and leaving her pinned to the floor, like a captured butterfly in a case. The blood came quickly, running down her sides, spurting a little with each gasping breath. It mixed with the tea all around her, the bitter and the iron blending into a smooth red symphony.

                The murderer sat on the opposite side of the room, as far from the body as he could get, at the table that was nestled in the corner. His coat, long and too big on him, pooled underneath him on the bench. He looked almost comically serious, in the manner of an adult attending a child’s tea party. The effect was amplified by the way that he hunched over his mug of tea, the way that his hands wrapped all the way around his mug, and  the way that his legs stuck straight out from under the table because he couldn’t fold them up. He wasn’t tall though. It was more in the way that he held himself than his height. His very nature was overwhelming.

                He had wiped the blood from his face, but it remained on his clothing and his arms and his hands. Everything he touched bore a red stain. Handprints on the teapot, on the mug, on the table, and on the blade that pinned the owner to the ground. They sat there, evidence to his deed. The murderer stared at the body, though there was not much to see anymore. The life was all bled out and there was nothing left but the body and even that was losing its shape. His hands were still soaked in her blood. He wondered if that stain would stay. He wondered if that meant anything. He found his reflection in his steaming tea. It was made from the leaves he had found in a precious little glass box. There had been a scarce few of them, each one was clearly valuable. He had dumped them all into the boiling water, watching as the aged leaves soaked up and dyed the water light gold, like a captured sunbeam. His eyes stared back at him, wide and mournful. He knew that his gaze made people uncomfortable. When he stared, they knew what he could see beyond their glassy eyes. When he turned that gaze upon himself he saw emptiness and that disturbed him more than anything.

                The blood on his hands horrified him more than he was allowed to say. The death, of course, was necessary. Evil was descending upon the world. Depending on your choice of worship it might be the Apocalypse, or Ragnarok, or perhaps the “cold darkness”. Every religion and every reigning deity had known that someday the end would come. Some made their own predictions on how they would die, other set in place their executioners. Many had passed out of style before the day came. Such were the Norse gods. They withered away in their halls, not as a human would wither but in the manner of great mountains that lose their grandeur over long, but still their grey gnarled hands clutched at war hammers garnished with rust. They waited for the day that evil would rise. And on that day all the old legends and myths would rise, ready to soak the earth in their blood. 

The newer gods did not like that idea at all. Their idea of an apocalypse was one that could be resolved before it became an issue.

Before the murderer had set out he had been told that he was forgiven for this crime. The lives this murder would save  far outweigh this one. It was unfortunate that  the death had been difficult. Her body had convulsed, a scream had ripped across her vocal cords, and all the while she had stared into his eyes, weeping. Beyond the eyes he saw her dreams for this place. He saw the passing of poets and play-wrights in and out of her store. He saw how they would go on to be monumental artists, but never forgot the teashop or her kindness. Then he saw all of the potential for joy slip away as her shudders slowed and stopped, her future crumbled into dust. She died. There was no more struggle for life. He flinched at the remembrance.

                It was time for him to go. Soon people would begin arriving, begin noticing, seeing, panicking. The murderer could not have that. So he stood. After a moment’s consideration he picked up his teapot and his mug, and then crossed the room silently. The floorboards were cheap. In the short time that this store had existed they had developed a symphony of creaks. The owner used to say that an orchestra must be practicing in her basement. “They’re still learning,” she would excuse their playing. However the orchestra must have been out today. The room was silent.

The owner lay there, still dead, thankfully. His blade was still sheathed in her stomach. Its name meant justice in somebody’s tongue, though sometimes he wondered why. Silver ornamentation twisted around the grip. It was sharp in some places where the metal stuck straight out like thorns. It glittered coldly as he drew it out of her body, all full of savage righteousness.

                Hello Protector, it had said, the voice smirking at the word protector, mocking it.

                Gefandi ,his response was curt.

He pulls the shadows in around him, vanishing with only the faintest of sounds.