Tea from an Ancient Samovar

Gerry gazed at the polished brass samovar that had betrayed him. Just as he had taken a sip of the delicious tea produced from it, lightly honeyed and perfect in color, he had felt himself diminishing in size. He also felt a sudden nervous prickling of his skin. Was this some sort of allergic reaction? Now he was developing a tail, four legs, and webbed feet. To his horror, he looked down at himself and realized he had turned into a small gecko. 

            Was it the proportion of concentrated tea to hot water that had gone awry? But no, his host had assured him that he was blending the two correctly. Where was his host now? Apparently, the young man had stepped out of the room after offering him the tea and taking his money and had missed Gerry’s absurd transformation altogether. 

            And what the heck was he perched upon? A round, ribbed silver disc of some sort. He looked down and saw that he sat atop an hourglass, two thirds empty of its precious time, with the sand below him moving at a steady rate! Ironic timing, really—this reminder that he was part of the animal kingdom along with the realization that he was late for perhaps the most important encounter of his life. How could he go now, in this condition? He should never have stopped at the tea house to imbibe that tea. 

            He had heard there was some magic from the East regarding the drinking of tea—some said it caused religious conversion, from what to what he didn’t know. He had rarely paid attention to any religious lessons—Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Moslem, or otherwise. But this existential condition—well, it was ridiculous, even if reincarnation had something to do with it. And one could hardly undrink the tea to reverse the charm. 

            He glanced around at his surroundings. He now saw that his image mirrored the spotted gecko in a painting on the wall above the samovar, which included a likeness of the samovar itself. As in the painting, below him lay fabrics of various hues, with delicate and multi-cultured patterns. A gourd of some sort perched upon the fabrics, carved open, with a mysterious eye in its interior. The eye pulsated with an extraordinary luminosity, as if it could actually see and read into his being. A metal pitcher for honey or cream nestled below that. His instinct was to scurry over to it, push it over and drink whatever it contained, though that might result in another cast spell, and he couldn’t afford the time. Could he even move? Crawl off the darned hourglass? Kick it over perhaps, and stop time? 

            He blinked, and the gecko in the painting blinked, too. Cautiously, he moved one foot—again, there was response in the painted image. But it wasn’t a mirror, as he could perceive the texture of the painted surface of the canvas. A confounding situation, this! 

            He decided he should stay where he was. What if someone were observing him? He now resembled a figure in the painted tableau, poised with his tail drooping over the side of an hourglass. What if he suddenly behaved according to animal instinct, wreaking havoc on the scene? He would then only exemplify the trope. No, he would stay the course and prove he was worthy of turning back into a man—a man who would potentially inherit a rather large sum of money, if he could only get to that meeting. 

            Evening descended. The hourglass sand kept up its pace, both beneath him and in the painting, yet aside from that slight movement and the darkened view out the window, everything was exactly as it had been since he had sipped the tea. The lighting in the room did not change, and no one had come to rearrange anything, to empty the samovar, wonder where he, Gerry, had gone, or even just gaze upon the scene and admire his figure and posture as a gecko. 

            He closed his eyes, wishing desperately that things could somehow return to normal. And then he had a flash of realization, an epiphany really, about how he had ignored so much of the beauty that others spoke of or wrote about, of art and sunsets and newborn babes, of music and laughter and the simple joys of having toast and jam on a winter morning. Was it his karma that he should turn into a gecko? Had he been less of a person than he could have been? Would he ever return to the life he had known before? Would those whom he had neglected forgive him? And were there other lessons to be learned that he had failed to absorb?

            He felt a tremor beneath him; the hourglass unburdened the last of its remaining sand, and as the top part of the glass emptied, time suddenly re-started. He felt himself growing larger, his tail disappearing beneath his reappearing suit coat, his webbed appendages turning back into hands. He stood now on the floor facing the samovar, with the half-filled teacup in his hand. The scene before him was exactly as it had been before he had turned into the gecko. Yet the painting did not change to reflect his newly reassembled form—the gecko was still there as if he had never embodied it.  

            As he set his teacup down, not wishing to experience another transformation, the creature in the painting seemed to smile at him, to put him in his place as an observer. Go on to your meeting, he seemed to suggest, but don’t forget what you learned. 

            What was it exactly—that this little bit of a microcosm before him might reflect something much larger, a bit of earth mingling with the immensity of heaven? That art and beauty and even love were worth more than the financial gain he craved? Had some sort of cosmic eye seen into his reality and changed it? Would he approach things differently now? 

Had he indeed savored the magical tea?