The Lost Dreams of a Broken Poet

The Last Cup of Tea

I had the first line stuck in my head for a while before I wrote anything decent. I actually like how this one turned out. Enjoy!!

The day I finished my last cup of tea was a day like none other.

Like an orchestra about to begin its final masterpiece, the day began softly, nothing out of the ordinary. Yet slowly but surely, it began to reach the climax. The moment that would change my life forever.

First it was my train ride to Campus. As I walked down the mechanical escalator, the train arrived and waited, doors open wide, for me to walk in and sit on the only free spot. I felt lucky.

Then it was a lecture at University, where all finally made sense. In fact, the numbers and letters on the board finally became so much more than that. They became life. No one saw it.

And then it was the walk back to the station. An old friend saw me and invited me to coffee. We went to this huge Café. Books filled every spare wall, with rainbows of covers and cats resting between skull and crystal book holders.

"What is this place?" I asked. I had passed by this street so many times, I was astounded that I could have missed such a magical place.

"A black coffee and, what do you want?" My friend simply asked, a waiter dressed in witch clothes taking our order.

"Just some red tea," I bobbed my head. The waiter left and I looked at my friend, who completely ignored my stunned expression and took out the first book she saw and began reading. I sighed, realizing that I wasn't going to get any answers soon and copied her, grabbing the book that had been left forgotten on our table. Nearby, a black cat jumped on my lap and began purring.

"Here you go," the woman said. We nodded in thanks and began drinking, dipping a biscuit or two.

"I wonder, I feel I have been here for such a long time..." I suddenly muttered as my eyes closed. I turned my wrist to look at my watch, only to realize that random numbers were blinking in and out the darkened screen. I blinked, not sure how to react, and gazed towards my friend.

But it wasn't my friend. It was a woman draped in an old Victorian dress, with a hairstyle that must have taken hours to put up and a penetrating gaze as she stared at the open book.

I stood up, surprised, the cat falling from my lap and meowing in anger. But I had eyes only for the image on the mirror next to me. A warrior in a full suit of armor, a helmet at their feet and a sword strapped to their belt. And when I looked down, I was the soldier. The same soldier that held their blade in the cover of the book I was reading.

And in a distant world, a million universes away, a Café shop by the name The Book Dreamer, cleared an empty table, two open books laying forgotten and two cups of coffee and tea empty and cleaned.