[Sticks]

Introduction
Recently a local coffee shop I often frequent, who is celebrating three years in business announced a competition to win a t-shirt for submitting a short creative piece about coffee. It can be a story, poem etc, but must be about coffee andnot too long.

I started working on an idea, but on Thursday I was in his shop and he said that people had been submitting entries that were about a paragraph in length.

I realised that what I was working on may be too long already, and at that point was not finished.

So I looked up the rules for a Haiku in English.

It had to be seventeen syllables in three lines with a five - seven- five pattern. It must also make a caparison or have a juxtaposition

I then created this haiku and submitted it.

Instant one flavour
Real has many flavours
I prefer real

Coffee geeks will get this

This left my other work, the story I was working. A fictionalised (sort of) story of a coffee mug I purchased in Canada in 2006.

I finished it up, and here it is. Probably not as polished as if I had submitted it as my entry, instead of the haiku

Spoiler:

Journey of a coffee cup
By Graeme Stickings

It was normal day like any other at the Canadian coffee mug importers in Vancouver. The coffee mugs had come all the way from China to Canada by container ship, and they were all excited about a new life in a land as big as China with not so many people.

The coffee mugs were all eager to be delivering fresh coffee beverages to their new owners, and chatted incessantly to one another.
One mug was eager to serve his new owner cappuccinos, but then the others had to put him straight.

“Sorry” they told the coffee mug, “but that type of coffee is only served in a proper pottery mug, or sometimes a paper cup if the coffee drinker is ignorant and insists on a takeaway version.

“We” the other coffee mugs went on, “Carry to our masters what the Americans call drip coffee or what some call filter coffee. Sometimes they may have that version called Americano, an Italian invention, but still acceptable in travel coffee mugs such as we, but cappuccino, never”
The eager coffee mug then said “But”
However the other coffee mugs interrupted, “And we do not do latte or Mocha”
“Right” the eager coffee mug said defensively and then shut up. The other coffee mugs had made him look very silly.

A number of vehicle came to the importers and the travel coffee mugs where then removed from the shipping container and placed in smaller crates. Some of the coffee mugs were taken to what they were told was an airport to be shipped to coffee drinkers elsewhere in this land called Canada, others were taken along distance by road, some a not so long distance.

The eager coffee mug, still smarting at being ridiculed for not knowing what type of coffee he was to carry kept his tongue while the others chattered about how they would be all helping thirsty Canadians carry their favourite coffee to work. Some asked if they would be sold in coffee shops, but they were told that that was probably unlikely as none of them had any insignia, writing or logo of any coffee chain.
“So are we generic coffee mugs?” the eager coffee mug piped up
“Who ever heard of generic coffee?” was one response, “Sounds like that ghastly invention called instant coffee”
But then another coffee mug piped up, “And what’s wrong with instant? You use a spoon and a kettle and less fuss, stop being a coffee snob”
At that an argument ensued and the eager coffee mug just looked down at the floor, wishing it would swallow him.

The truck they were on came to a stop. They had only been travelling for an hour

The eager coffee mug wondered what kind of store he was due to be sold in. He still hoped for a coffee shop chain. Then he might have a smart new logo.
But it was not to be.

He was placed by the tills in what seemed to be some kind of outward bound and camping shop. This was a place where after thought goods were placed, so the other items in the store told him. These were things that the people might buy on impulse, not something that they planned to buy.



And so with other coffee cups, this poor coffee cup languished.
Days turned into weeks, and still nobody wanted the travel coffee mugs. They bought other things, like tents, barbecues, rucksacks and other camping equipment. Some even bought shoes, which was odd, because the other goods in the shop said there was a shoe shop next door, but then those shoes next door were inferior and the shoes in this shop were for serious outward bound types.

The formerly eager coffee mug wondered if he would ever be sold and serve a thirsty Canadian with coffee, whatever type it was. He would even be happy if he could serve instant coffee, but he thought he may end up being dumped, to make way for something that would sell.

Then it happened, a middle aged man with a walking stick came walking towards the checkouts. He looked flustered and embarrassed, and to the coffee mug’s surprise the man picked him up.
The man did not speak with a Canadian accent, although his English was excellent, could he be from across the border in the US?
The man with the stick bought the formerly eager coffee mug and left the store.

“I wonder if I will be going to America?” the coffee mug thought
The man with the stick approached an older man and got in his car. The older man had a similar accent to the man with the stick.
What was confusing was when the older man berated the man with the stick for buying the coffee mug. The man with the stick had replied that he was obligated as the young woman was so nice in showing him possible new shoes, and yet they still did not buy his new shoes there, but still used their rest room. Older man just said she was being nice to try and get a sale, and that the man with the stick fell for it hook line and sinker.

So the man with the stick only bought him to be polite, charming!

From the way the man with the stick was spoken to by the older man, and then an older woman who was definitely Canadian, it seemed like the man with the stick was visiting, but from where? Which part of America, or possibly Canada did the accent come from?

The coffee mug did get to be used in Canada, at a place where they sold fast food, but then he was packed into a suitcase, minus his lovely carrying box! The people the man with the stick was staying with said it would count against his baggage allowance!

Then the coffee cup went on a ride, stuffed in a turquoise suitcase, and from the sounds outside he could work out that they were at an airport. Vancouver International Airport.

The suitcase was loaded onto a plane, which from what the baggage handlers were saying was headed for Manchester Airport. “What part of the US or Canada is that in?” the coffee cup continued to wonder.

The journey was long, and the hold was cold, meaning that this was a long flight.

Finally the plane landed, and the coffee cup could only presume it was the man with the stick that took the suitcase, through the airport, and then onto what he heard was a “Transpenine Express” which seemed to some kind of train.

That journey seemed to last a long time and many people around the suitcase had a similar accent to the man with the stick.

Then they arrived at a place called Newcastle upon Tyne, well that it what some announcer said that the train service was terminating at.

The suitcase then seemed to travel on its wheels and then got onto what sounded like a large road vehicle. This journey was quite short compared with the plane ride and the train journey. Then the suitcase travelled along on its wheels. It felt to the coffee cup they were going uphill.

It then sounded like they had entered a building and the suitcase trundled through it with ease. They came to a stop and waited for a few minutes and then moved a very short distance forward. The room then started to rise.
They were in an elevator, except someone called it a lift.

The suitcase trundled out of the elevator or lift and in no time at all it seemed that they were finally at the home of the man with the stick, and the coffee cup’s new home. The coffee cup was then unpacked, and then placed in some kind of shopping bag with other items.

The man with the stick proceeded to take the coffee mug everywhere, and he found himself used at work and in coffee shops. One time the coffee was even taken to some remote island.




In time the coffee cup managed to find out that it was not in America, but in England. The coffee cup also discovered that there nothing like him in this small country, as all other coffee cups were hybrids and broke easily.
It seemed that even though the eager coffee cup may have once been bought by the man with a stick, just to be polite, he became his pride and joy, as he took him everywhere to enjoy coffee in all sorts of places, to this day.



As for the shoes, they only lasted a month after the man with the stick got back from Canada.


The end