by Elena Novahkova

I woke up to the sound of a whistling kettle every morning.

The sun still slept, the sky enveloped in darkness, and the only thing lighting the crummy apartment except for the flickering lamp was the blue flames from the gas cooker. 

I yawned and put aside my fuzzy blanket, brushing my bare feet against the freezing tiles. A shiver circled through the entirety of my spine as I battled the desire to curl up inside my warm bed back again. I pushed through, folded the blanket, and with eyes half closed, I made my way into the kitchen.

My mother would already sit next to the only lamp in the room and read last week's newspaper that Mr. Sichinski from the seventh floor gave her. I'd say good morning but simultaneously yawn so that all that came out was an indistinguishable mess of sounds. My mother would laugh and wish me a good morning too.

As I took the torn blue cloth with flowers and gripped the kettle, my mother would start reading the article on the third side, no matter what it concerned. Sometimes it would be world politics; sometimes, a local interview, and then, very rarely, the times when my ears would perk up, and I'd forget about my sleepiness, there would be a story. Not any story, our story. Printed up with real ink against the harsh texture of the paper with bold letters.

I would try to finish up the tea as quickly as possible. Open the first drawer on the left, full of all kinds of almost washed cutlery, and find the smallest spoon. I would look through the variously sized tins lined up on the cupboard, standing up on my toes to see the red one. Not the scarlet-shaded red one that contained old buttons, but the barely red one, the one whose colour had almost faded out. While my mother started telling the story, I'd pick up the tea sifter and put exactly three spoons of the tea leaves from the tin in it. Then, placing the sifter into the teapot, I'd reach for the kettle, turn off the gas, and pour it into the teapot. All I had to do afterward was to set the egg-shaped kitchen timer to a little over five minutes, and I could sit down. As the wooden chair creaked, I relaxed and leaned forward to the newspaper.  

It was then when my eyes, finally unsticking after the long night, could adore our story for the first time. By Elena Novahkova it would read under the title. Sometimes, we'd laugh, recounting what a clever name it is, reminiscing both Eva and Lenka, combining our names into one pseudonym.

The stories themselves had a colourful palette of names. No matter if it were The Hound and its Shade, The Forgotten Train Track, or The Awakening of a Teacher, I would hang to every word, even though I wrote it, listening to the story as if it was my first time. 

They weren't long, the stories, no, they were timed precisely, that when mother finished the last words, the timer would ring, and I would get the cups out. 

My mother always had the bigger ceramic cup with dots and a nonrecognisable creature drawn on it. She found it at a small market many years ago, and for reasons I would never understand, she held it close to her heart. My cup had no such poetic story as it was an ordinary dark blue cup, but on those cold mornings, I never complained. I poured the finished tea from the teapot without many words and handed mother her cup, setting mine on the table.

My fingers clenched around the tea almost immediately, bringing the cup close to my mouth. I inhaled the flavour and watched as even the innermost corners of my mind began to wake up. 

“It was a good story,” I'd say.

Mother would close the newspaper, take a sip of her tea and nod her head: “It was not particularly bad, yes.”

“Oh, you have to have more confidence! It was an really good.”

The tea scent finally filled the whole kitchen, pushing out the static apathy of the mornings.

“What you call confidence, I call arrogance. The story could've been better, we should have expanded on the conflict between-”

I'd laugh, finishing my cup of tea and standing up to refill it: “Can't you just once lie and say the story was good?”

“And where would be then? In today's world, people lie too much to make others comfortable. That I cannot do.”

That was the moment when my eyes would light, and I would spread my hand into the air: “Imagine a world where no one could lie! Hilarious, yet tragic.”

My mother would laugh slowly, rhythmically, the corners of her mouth only slightly twitching. “Well in that scenario, politicians would have to change jobs immediately. But a good idea, really…”

Then she would grab a pen and without another word, start scribbling on the newspaper. That was the moment when The Reelection of Truth was created. A new story, opening its eyes in our little rundown apartment, walking its first steps on the freezing tiles of the bedroom and saying its first words on mother's old typewriter. We would spend the morning refining the plot, thinking about the characters, the journey, so long until it was my time to stand up and look at the clock.

“I am going to be late! I haven't even prepared my things!” 

I would sprint into the bedroom, grab my bag, brush my teeth and comb my hair all at the same time. Somehow, every morning, I managed to finish all of those tasks right at the time to wish my mother a good day, run down all ten floors of the building without stumbling, and catch the 7:12 bus at the corner. 

When I'd return at night, my mother would be already sleeping, and I would have to step on the freezing tiles with extreme precision not to wake her up.

The next morning, the day began anew. A new article, a new cup, yet always the same day.

I do not wake up to the sound of the whistling kettle anymore.

Nowadays, when I finally roll out of my bed, the sun is already high in the sky, burning its hole into my mind. I have long replaced the kettle with an electric water boiler that doesn't whistle, only beep, as all the new machines do.

The tea I make is from a tea bag, the red tin losing all its colour and purpose years ago. Mr. Sichinski doesn't buy the news physically anyways too, he says it is too costly, and I agree. 

I make my tea and sit at the same table. Even though I sit there for hours, there are no words oozing out of my fingers, no story burning to be heard, nothing urging me to create.

How can Elena Novahkova write when one part of her is missing?

There is no kettle, no story, and worst of all, no mother.