A sign leaned into the window of the Mystic Tea House. It could have been there forever. The sign, that is, not the tea house which just showed up one day. No one could recall the transformation from bike shop to tea house. Yet, there must have been some indication. Papered windows or piles of lumber. The fanfare of an opening day. But there was nothing, only the recollection that something else had been there and now this, a tea house in its stead. Curious, people thought, trying to remember the time between.
The sign was scrawled on a piece of parchment as ancient as a desert landscape, in
letters that appeared to be Sanskrit or Arabic, but as you approached they gelled hesitantly into English. A clunky call-out for sacred work: “Ecstatic Poet Wanted.
Apply Within.” Ecstatic, you might wonder. Ecstatic?
Beside the sign was a brass lamp. Its spout lengthened out, beckoning like a long forefinger and made you think of whatever you knew of Aladdin. Furtively, you'd want to hold the lamp, to rub it with your palm, to wish those three wishes which, without even thinking about, you were already muttering. Not the new car, but something more poetic. Like love. Or time travel. Still, it was foolish to hope for a genie, let alone expect one, though a thousand had probably done so before you.
If you pressed your forehead against the window and peered beyond the fog of your breath, you'd see dozens of carpets covering the floor, the walls. They looked as though, at any moment, they would rise from the floor and swoop into the air. In fact, there was speculation that these carpets and their owners had been spotted over Seal Bay Park some months ago, fishing at dawn. The riders hovered above the water, rods pitched over the edge of a sixth century Persian weave carpet. The source was unreliable and, when questioned, the couple just nodded and shrugged.
Perhaps you'd be enticed to enter the Tea House. There might be hesitancy, or a flutter of excitement in your belly. Should you enter, you would be somehow changed. Affected. And we, as a species, always get a little nervous about change...
