Little Mr. Finning considered himself something of an expert in the art of brewing tea. While it was not an official title (of course), he liked to think that his visitors would agree.
His tea house was called "Finning’s Finest," its name scrawled in cursive on a wooden board that creaked softly in the wind. The windows fogged in winter, the wind chime sang lightly whenever somebody entered, and the air always carried a faint aroma of cinnamon and freshly toasted bread.
At eighty, Mr. Finning had shrunk into his suspenders and looked like a pickle jar with opinions. He buffed his spectacles with devotion and insisted that tea should steep for exactly four minutes and twenty-two seconds - no more, no less.
Then one Wednesday - because peculiar things always seem to happen on Wednesdays - the bell chimed, and a tall man in a tweed jacket came through the door. He looked too warm for the weather and too cheerful for a stranger.
“Howdy, lil’ buddy!”
Mr. Finning blinked. He had never forgotten a face. One would say it was part of owning a tea house - knowing who took two sugars and who had a nut allergy but loved almond biscuits.
But this man? Not familiar.
The stranger laughed and sat at the window table. “Still grumpy. Good. Means you’re still you.”
“Have we met?”
“You probably wouldn’t remember. I was just a kid.”
“I remember all kids.”
“I was the forgettable kind. Didn’t speak much. Sat in that corner,” he said, pointing to the wobbly chair near the counter.
That detail stirred something in the back of Finning's mind, although he couldn’t quite say why.
“Tea?” he asked, humoring the stranger.
“Your best. Earl Grey with a dash of milk. And that honey you keep under the counter.”
Now that raised an eyebrow. Not many knew about the honey.
The man sipped his tea and sighed. “Still perfect.” He paused for a brief moment and said, “You know, you used to say stories were hidden in teacups.”
Finning let out an amused huff. “Sounds like me.”
“It was.”
The man returned the next day. And the day after. He never gave his name. Always the same tea, the same table by the window, the same smile. It was almost like he knew a secret he wasn’t willing to share.
“You were the only grown-up who asked what I was thinking, not what I got in math.”
Finning chuckled. “I still don’t understand fractions.”
“I remember. That’s why I liked you."
Mr. Finning wrote about him in his notebook:
“Mysterious Stranger. Too comfortable. Knows the tea. Knows me. Possibly a ghost. Or an ex-barista? Unlikely.”
The notebook was meant for writing stories. But more often than not, it became a log of all the peculiar people who came into the tea house: the silent girl who only drank chamomile and sketched birds, the couple who argued over crosswords, and the boy with green headphones who bobbed to invisible music.
Finning had long dreamed of becoming a writer, of writing books that were dog-eared in libraries and quoted by kids trying to sound smart.
He had asked every young customer what they read. The answers puzzled him: fantasy, dystopia, sci-fi. “Too many green-skinned creatures,” he grumbled while scribbling their responses in a leather- bound notebook.
But when he tried to write, words eluded him. It was almost as if they tiptoed away the moment he reached for them.
So he did what he knew best. He watched. Each visitor became a character in a story he never quite managed to finish. The man was no different.
He spoke of books and dreams and of words that mattered. He quoted things Finning didn’t remember saying but sounded like him nevertheless.
On a particularly rainy Thursday, they talked for an hour without realizing. About cities that had disappeared but books that managed to stay.
“Isn’t it funny?” the man mused. “We read stories about places that don’t exist anymore. Maybe because we know the people in them are long gone. There is a certain comfort in tragedy.”
“Tragedy?”
“It makes you feel something. Even if it’s not joy. It’s easier to feel something than nothing at all.”
“Perhaps that’s what people are looking for,” Finning said slowly. “Meaning. Something that makes the time spent …. worth it.”
The man’s eyes flickered. “That is exactly why we need stories. Writing is not always about being remembered. It is about remembering.”
Finning didn’t respond right away. He gave a tiny smile, one of those rare ones that made his eyes crinkle. Something in him shifted that day.
Weeks went by and Mr. Finning looked lighter. He began writing again. He filled pages with things he wasn’t sure had happened and people who felt like they definitely had.
One day - and a Wednesday, sure enough - the man did not come.
It was a chilly autumn, he told himself as a consolation, people rarely strayed outside their homes. Late that afternoon, Finning noticed the old clock above the door ticking a little louder than usual. A distant, raspy cough interrupted the silence, knocking at the doors of his memory. It took him back to the one time when the man had said, after coughing softly into a napkin, “Some stories are short. But even those deserve to be told.” At the time, Finning hadn’t thought much of it. He looked back up at the clock, which had gone back to its eerie, silent ticking.
Days passed, and the man did not come by.
Each time the wind chime tinkled, his hopes rose and fell just as quickly. Finning tried to act like it didn’t bother him but he knew all too well that he was no fan of mysteries without clear endings. He tried to ignore the way the window table now looked empty. But he brewed an extra cup and placed it there anyway.
One morning, a young, burly postman walked in. He carried a bundle of papers and an envelope. “You’re Mr. Finning?”
He nodded.
The postman handed over the envelope.
It had a letter. And a faded photo. In it, Mr. Finning stood beside a boy with soft curls beaming widely, clutching a paper titled "My First Poem."
He read the letter.
—----------
“Dear lil’ buddy,
If you’re reading this, I’ve probably gone off to wherever old poems and warm tea scents go. Don’t look so grumpy; it’s a nice place.
I never expected you to remember me. That was never the point. Certainly not with you.
You were kind to me when I was invisible. You read my clumsy poems that somehow always rhymed with ‘banana’ and told me they mattered. I carried those words through every storm.
You made me believe in small things like warm cups and warm words.
So here’s something - you have been published. Well, sort of.
The book in the envelope is a collection of stories. All of them a fond recollection of this tea house. Of you.
Oh, and page 42 - that’s yours. Word for word, the poem we wrote together when I was nine. Thank you, Mr. Finning. For everything.
Your not-so-little buddy,
Tom”
—---------
The room felt still.
Mr. Finning turned to page 42, his hands trembling.
“The clouds wear a hat made of steam
and dreams pour slowly into the skies.
A grumpy man once told me
that stories were just love in disguise.”
That evening, Mr. Finning didn’t close the shop. He left the lights on and the bell untied. Dusted the window table twice and placed the book on it. Then pulled out his leather-bound notebook.
He found himself finishing a story that day. At the end, he wrote,
“Dedicated to the mysterious stranger who may have become a friend. Perhaps my only one.”
With a little help from the young postman (who, as it turned out, had connections in publishing), the story found its way into print.
When his published work arrived, he set it gently by the window table. It wasn’t that he was not proud; if anything, he was prouder than he’d ever been. Just not for the reasons you’d imagine.
'Writing is not always about being remembered. It is about remembering.'
"Funny how some words stick with you," Finning thought. "But again, what’s the point if they don’t?"
The regulars came in the next week. The couple still argued over crosswords. The girl continued sketching. The boy still bobbed his head to the music on his headphones.
And Mr. Finning? He measured the leaves, boiled the water, and set the timer.
The tea was always the same. But the cup. Ah, the cup was always different. Always new.
It was a small thing, but it made him smile.
At exactly four minutes and twenty-two seconds, the timer beeped. Mr. Finning turned the kettle off.
React
