Coffee in a Teacup

No. 10

I had a dream the other night. A very lucid one. In the dream I was having coffee with a man I recognized but didn’t know. I could only remember his name being Gordon. Dreams are like that.

Gordon surprised me with a question once I had seated myself down at the table where he was seated. His legs were crossed. I had a small paper cup of coffee in my hand. Gordon looked quite comfortable, like he’d been there for a while.

“So, what is this thing you’re writing about?” Gordon said. A half-filled paper cup with the string of a tea-bag dangling over the side, was positioned in front of him. The lid was removed. Steam still rose from the cup. “The speed of light, the unconscious, freewill. What are you trying to say?”

“What?” I remembered answering but later surprised on two counts. First, that in writing this piece I realized Gordon had mentioned the unconscious in my unconscious. Second, as I had just posted my latest article, which I hoped many would read as part of my A Changing Frame of Reference series, Gordon had already read it. Though I didn’t know him, he seemed to know me and my work. “You read what I wrote?”

“Yes,” he said. I saw what I’d call a judgmental grimace appear on his face as if to say what kind of person would I be if I didn’t, “I’ve read them all.”

My head shook, reacting before my brain had hardly received what I’d heard.

“You’ve read what I’ve been posting?” I don’t think I could have sounded more incredulous than if Gordon had raised his tea and emptied it on the floor beside us.

“Of course,” he said shrugging as if the answer to my question was as obvious as his sitting in front of me. “You look surprised.”

“Because I am,” I said. “Rarely does anyone talk to me directly about my work.”

“That’s nothing new. People are afraid to talk to creators about what they do. Believe me, I know. Some seem afraid that they might not have understood what we’re writing about. Maybe it’s fear of conflict.”

I took a sip of my coffee. Pleased on one hand someone was reading my work but suddenly anxious that that might soon change.

“Why are you?”

“I’m not sure. I know I like it. Why are you writing this?” Gordon said and seemed to wince asking the question like saying the words out loud hurt him.

My fingers touched my chin as my head rose in reflection.

“I’m not sure except to say I have to.”

I was already thinking about the last few pieces I’d published. Language and the unconscious and Cormac McCarthy. A story about Christmas written days before the big day. And the most recent, machinations of the universe working together and questioning our freewill.

“Have to? What do you mean? Who’s making you?”

“I am. Something inside me.”

“You’re going all religious on me.”

“I am asking a lot of questions, yes.”

“Like?” Gordon then raised his tea in the paper cup to his lips.

I thought about what I should say. I picked up my own paper cup of coffee. I thought of the book that had reignited things and my third post, “Pyramids and Precession.”

“Fingerprints of the Gods,” I said.

“Okay. I bought it.”

I smiled. “Good.” I was suddenly brave. “Did you buy The Actor too?”

“I ordered a copy.”

“Thank you,” I said, a little surprised at my daring. The Actor is nearing the ten-year mark since it had been published.

“You’re welcome,” he said and shook his head. “Don’t change the subject. You talk about precession, why?”

“Because before I’d read the book, I don’t ever remember learning about it.” I went on. “I know space is big, infinite, and that planets orbit suns and moons planets. But not how the Earth spins in its orbit.”

“Okay, but you go from precession, which is hard to understand, to freewill, which is a never-ending debate. That’s a leap my friend. A mammoth chasm to cross!”

I just remembered Gordon spoke with an English accent.

“Okay,” I said feeling my defensive hackles rising, “But I also talked about the universe and gravity and the constants of science in between.”

“Yes, you did. But you know about those things. Some maybe aren’t so familiar. Those subjects require thought not just the ability to stare at a phone.”

“Yes, I guess they do.”

Gordon showed a gapped toothed smile. His teeth were surprisingly small. I’d not noticed before. He didn’t show them when he sang.

Sang? This man was famous.

“Why do I want to know about what you’re writing about. It won’t help me pay my mortgage, choose between an electric or petrol car or the intention of a song lyric.”

I shook my head. “But it’s not supposed to. I …”

“Then what’s it supposed to do. Why precession? Or gravity? Or freewill for that matter?”

I was about to say because they are important but, “Because I’m trying to figure it out for myself,” came out.

“And why are you doing that? It’s like your message is in a bottle that’s hard to open.”

I was stuck because I didn’t have an answer. I’d asked myself the same thing many times. Why was this important? Why was I so fascinated?

“Because,” I said not quite knowing what would come out of my mouth next, “I want to believe we control our destinies, our freewill.”

“Oh,” Gordon replied, his eyebrows following the curve of his open mouth. “But what you’re learning is pointing in a direction opposed to that.”

I nodded. I could see he wanted to say more so I didn’t interrupt, which was an unusual stance for me to take.

“This sounds a little like coffee in a teacup.”

I could feel my lips purse together in a frown of confusion.

“What?” I said.

“My mother used to have this expression, ‘Like coffee in a teacup,’ she’d say. She used it to express what she saw as the culprit of British decline in the world.” Gordon laughed as he spoke. The teeth.

Though Gordon was this man’s real name. He wasn’t known by this name.

“Your mother was British?”

“She was, as was my father who I didn’t know well. She would say it to get his goat when he was being stubborn about something.”

“Okay, explain. You said precession was difficult to understand, but coffee in a teacup, who cares?”

Gordon sighed, “That’s just it.” He pointed at his paper cup. “This is tea in a paper cup. From my father’s perspective, tea and only tea is to be served in, and drunk from, a china teacup. Growing up, coffee was forbidden in a teacup in my house. All but blasphemy. It’s about accepting new ideas Doug. Empires fall, bands fade, because they can’t adjust to change—change in practice, change in thought, change in ideals.”

I took a sip of my coffee.

“So, you think I’m trying to pour coffee in readers china teacups?”

“I didn’t think of phrasing it that way—but maybe. I am after all an Englishman in New York.”

Gordon’s hands went to the edge of the table. He seemed to push himself into a straighter posture.

“You want to believe we have freewill and are in control of our destinies, right?”

I nodded slightly but didn’t say anything. I set my paper-cupped coffee back on the table.

“And you’re going through this maze of stuff from the Bible to the sciences and the unconscious, to demonstrate it, not only for yourself but in front of others?”

I nodded again.

“Then it’s probably time to say so,” he said and smiled, “Before you lose us.”

I stretched my neck by tilting my head backward and then side-to-side.

“You know I didn’t know that was what I was doing until now.”

“That’s okay. Things happen that way but I’ll be watching you.”

That’s when I woke up and realized who I’d been talking to.