Passed on to Another

My Uncle Charlie was a great writer, my favourite author by far. His stories were brilliant and generally amazingly imaginative. He was the one who inspired me to become a writer too, not anything my parents wanted for me as a career when I was a teenager and they wanted me to work my way to a steady, reliable job like the one my dad had. And that was not just from reading his novels, short stories and poetry. He would sit down across from me at the living room table of his apartment near where I lived and tell me how much I could come to enjoy the process of writing, not just having the final product finished. I can still picture him so clearly in those sessions, the two of us sharing our love of writing, and a freshly brewed coffee.

Then it happened. I hadn’t been able to finish even writing a short story before. But one night following such a session with my uncle, ideas began to almost literally jump into my mind. I had never typed my words so quickly before, and that way of recording was slower than how the ideas and words came. If I could have, I would have spoken all the words and ideas and have them recorded so that I could keep up with the ideas, and not lose them while typing. 

Still, I survived the idea attack. I was able to have a 3,000+ word story written. When I showed it to Uncle Charlie on the next day, he was greatly pleased. He said to me, “I was absolutely certain that you would have something for me today. I did not doubt it for a second. I am going to submit it for you to one of the magazines that often publishes my work. I know that they will publish it.”

We celebrated with coffee and doughnuts. It was not long later that very day that I again had a magical creativity, ideas poured like floodwaters filling my mind.  I wrote late into the night, and finished the story at about one o’clock in the morning. It too would eventually get published in short order.

Thus began a pattern. I would sit with my Uncle Charles, we would talk about writing, drink coffee and have a great time. I knew when I was walking back to my home a few blocks away, that sometimes ideas would be coming quickly once more. I brought pen and paper with me for my walk, and wrote several pages while sitting on a park bench. Time passed rather quickly, and I was late for supper that evening. I did not talk much with my parents while we ate. On my part it was because more ideas for stories were flowing, and I didn’t want to lose them by talking to my parents, who had never inspired my writing, and thought that ‘writing too much’ would keep me away from having a ‘real career’.

I go to University

Soon afterwards I went to university as an English major. I entered with a great deal of confidence. However, although I did write stories as well as the homework that I had to do, I did not feel the same rush of energy and insight that I had felt when I was regularly visiting my Uncle Charlie. It was not just that the professor was boring, although he definitely was most of the time. My mind plodded when I wrote. The stories were not bad, as such. They just did not flow with energy in the process as they used to do when I visited my uncle.

The Last Time I Met with Uncle Charlie

At the end of the first year of university, I received an A in English, but I was not satisfied with my writing. In the summer following, Uncle Charlie got deathly ill. I received an urgent phone call from him, his voice barely audible. He asked me to come visit with him. He said that it would be about the stories I had written over the last year, and how I could improve my future writing, including putting together my first novel. I was both excited and sad at the same time.

When I entered his house and walked into the living room, I saw welcome, familiar sights. There was Uncle Charlie sitting in his usual chair. And there was the coffee pot, and our two cups. After welcoming me with a big hug, he sat down, and told me that I would have to promise him something. It was a strange request, one I found difficult to believe. He first shifted the coffee cups. They had looked the same to me, but he turned them both over and pointed at the bottoms of each one. First there was my cup. He asked me ‘What do you see at the bottom of this cup? It seemed like such a strange question to me. I said to him the obvious, trying not to sound like I was talking down to him. “I see nothing but the bottom of a coffee cup.”

He nodded, and there were a few seconds of silence in the room. He put my cup down, and then picked up his cup, turning it over as he had just done before. He asked the same question, and I had a different answer. “I see two letters written in black.”

Before he poured the coffee into our two cups, he switched them. He told me that drinking from the cup that had until now been his, provided an inspiration for his writing, and had several times lent to me without my knowing. While that surprised me somewhat, a bigger surprise was forthcoming. Uncle Charlie told me that my earliest creativity came from the times when he switched cups with me.

“Now tell me what you see at the bottom of this cup.” The answer was easy. It was two letters written large: A and C. Then he asked me a more difficult question. “What great writer had those initials?” It took me about 20 seconds to provide an answer: “Agatha Christie”. I knew that he was a big fan of hers.

“A few years before she died in 1976, I was on a holiday in Britain, and went to a presentation she made, something she did not often do. She did not speak with much energy. She looked weak After her presentation, I walked up to her, one of the first in line to do so. I told her how much I liked her stories, and handed her one of my own, and along with that my hotel room phone number.”

“I was surprised when I received a call from her the next morning. She said that she wanted to give me something that would help me out as a writer. I met her the next day in a rare British coffee shop. She handed me the cup you now have in your hand. It was shortly after that that I wrote my first novel. Now I am handing you this cup so you can write your first novel too. The cup has something magic about it. Now the magic will be yours”.

It only took me two weeks to write my first novel. The cup worked its magic.  He was right.