Happy Place

My happy place is a place I've never actually visited.

It feels like the sort of wooden porch / outdoor walkway they often have on traditional Japanese homes. It's elevated a couple feet above ground level and overlooks a grassy yard. The grass has never been mowed; it's very tall, and sways in even the most gentle breeze. 

I sit here, relaxing, watching the wind dance in the grass. I think I have a big mug full of tea, or possibly coffee. I'm just sitting and watching and not really thinking about anything important. 

There are some woods a little further off, and a stream beyond them. When the wind's very calm, and if you know what to listen for, you can hear a little waterfall. It's louder now than it used to be; with a little help and some contraband fireworks, a few afternoons did the work of a few hundred years of erosion, so now instead of a stream trickling down a slope we have a proper waterfall. It's a good thing.

It's very quiet, which means you can hear all the chaotic noise of nature. Birds in the trees, bugs in the grass, all sorts of critter and varmint wandering and digging in to their life. I'm not a part of it; I'm just me, some random human, sitting on the porch wearing very comfortable clothing and drinking a very pleasant drink. What else could life possibly offer?

Timmy the Little Coffee Cup

Almost didn't make it in this week! I procrastinated. But hey - when I barely squeak in under the deadline for a 350-word piece, I do it Big Time! This is the trimmed-down version here; I went a teensy over the word limit I myself set, so for the linkup I did some hatchet-editing (that is, I cut it off at the right spot). The full version is 691 words. This version is 345. To finish the story, click the link at the end; to start the story with the intention of reading the whole thing, click this link right here!

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Timmy was manufactured in China with a hundred thousand brothers and sisters. Back home, he thought he was very modern because he didn't judge the other coffee cups by their color; Timmy was red, but some of his siblings were yellow, orange, and even blue, not that there's anything wrong with that.

It wasn't until he was unboxed far from home that he first saw other designs. Squat cups; square cups; cups with round bottoms, or funny-shaped handles. It was overwhelming; he was in some strange place full of more kinds of cups than he'd ever imagined could exist.

Timmy had a bit of a freak-out and banged into one of his fellow cups on the way out of the box. He watched, or would have if he'd had eyes, as a tiny piece of himself fell from the edge of his lip. It hit the cardboard below him with an earth-shattering "pip" sound that he could have heard if he'd had ears.

The other cups were horrified. Timmy was horrified. A chip! In the incredibly diverse world he'd been unpackaged into, Timmy found himself with the one bit of uniqueness that would ensure an eternity of un-ownedness. Timmy bawled out silent dry motionless sobs of unspeakable sorrow.

And yet... life went on, and Timmy did his best to support his siblings to succeed and leave the store in one piece. Not everyone made it; many a cup crashed to the hard ground and broke, never to be repaired. In the scheme of things, Timmy reflected, he was lucky enough to merely have a slight chip on one edge.

One by one, Timmy's siblings left for new lives while Timmy remained behind, cheering them on, hiding his pain along with his shame. Timmy was moved to the clearance rack, where he met some of the strange cups he'd once feared. Some had stories like his; a minor imperfection that marked them as pariahs, in many cases, or (more common to Timmy's eye) a design that could appeal only to very specific (and possibly blind) tastes.


(There's more! I could have maybe made this part make sense by itself, and it kind of does, in a sad, depressing, open-ended sort of way, but if you want closure and an actual story, click here!)

Timmy, the Coffee Cup (Director's Cup)

Timmy was manufactured in China with a hundred thousand brothers and sisters. Back home, he thought he was very modern because he didn't judge the other coffee cups by their color; Timmy was red, but some of his siblings were yellow, orange, and even blue, not that there's anything wrong with that.

It wasn't until he was unboxed far from home that he first saw other designs. Squat cups; square cups; cups with round bottoms, or funny-shaped handles. It was overwhelming; he was in some strange place full of more kinds of cups than he'd ever imagined could exist.

Timmy had a bit of a freak-out and banged into one of his fellow cups on the way out of the box. He watched, or would have if he'd had eyes, as a tiny piece of himself fell from the edge of his lip. It hit the cardboard below him with an earth-shattering "pip" sound that he could have heard if he'd had ears.

The other cups were horrified. Timmy was horrified. A chip! In the incredibly diverse world he'd been unpackaged into, Timmy found himself with the one bit of uniqueness that would ensure an eternity of un-ownedness. Timmy bawled out silent dry motionless sobs of unspeakable sorrow.

And yet... life went on, and Timmy did his best to support his siblings to succeed and leave the store in one piece. Not everyone made it; many a cup crashed to the hard ground and broke, never to be repaired. In the scheme of things, Timmy reflected, he was lucky enough to merely have a slight chip on one edge.

One by one, Timmy's siblings left for new lives while Timmy remained behind, cheering them on, hiding his pain along with his shame. Timmy was moved to the clearance rack, where he met some of the strange cups he'd once feared. Some had stories like his; a minor imperfection that marked them as pariahs, in many cases, or (more common to Timmy's eye) a design that could appeal only to very specific (and possibly blind) tastes.

The Clearance Rack Club, as they called themselves, passed the time pretending to play cards or play in a band, though none of them were particularly talented musicians. But Timmy sensed that they were being singled out now for special attention: every week, it seemed, they were examined by a store employee who often put new price labels on them. As the price cuts got more drastic, more and more of the Clearance Rack Club was taken away. New folks joined, some coffee cups like Timmy, a few plates and one very conceited spoon, but Timmy soon grew tired of the new folks. He began to eye the edge of the shelf; at first with curiosity, then with longing.

But before Timmy could work out the particulars of any attempt for the edge, he was purchased. After so long in the storefront, he was terrified of life on the outside. He didn't know what to do.

The first hours of his new life were a blur of confusion and activity. He was vaguely aware of the other dishes greeting him, some making snide remarks about his chip, saying things like, "Oh, another refugee from the clearance section!"

He was washed rather vigorously and came out feeling strangely refreshed. He hadn't realized how the months of shelf-time had built up on him, but suddenly he felt like a new cup again. When he was filled with water, he knew instinctively what he was supposed to do.

So he was very surprised when he found himself inside the microwave. A light and a noisy fan came on, and he started to rotate. After a while, he noticed that the water inside him was starting to bubble; slowly at first, but then with surprising energy. Wow, he thought, this is neat!


The microwave beeped and Timmy was removed; his new owner dumped some white powder into the water, causing a new flurry of bubbles to boil up.

"Hey, Katie, check it out!" the man said. "The handle's not even hot! This is probably the best microwave mug I've had yet!"