One Cup, Then the Next — Jack and William

The kitchen light reached as far as the doorway. Beyond it, the room was dark. Jack set a cup in front of William, then opened a cupboard he had already closed.

“Tea’s there,” William said.

“I know.” Jack left the cupboard open. “That’s been the whole day. Start the captions, remember the laundry. Go to the laundry, notice a message. Open the message, decide I need something to eat. Nothing finished. Now it’s nearly midnight and I’m tired as if I’d done something.”

William waited while Jack found the tea.

“There’s an old monastic name I remember,” William said. “The noonday demon. Acedia. Not just sitting there feeling bleak. Restlessness, too. Not attending to what’s in front of you.”

“Mine’s working late.”

William glanced at the open cupboard. “Apparently.”

Jack shut it, a little harder than necessary. The cups rattled.

“I thought a bad day would look more stationary,” he said. “I’ve barely sat down. But every time I moved, I was leaving something.”

“Did moving help at all?”

“For a minute. There was always a better thing to be doing in the next room.”

William turned his cup by the handle. “That piece about movement and emotional regulation—the one from earlier. Could a walk be different from that? A short one, with an end you choose before you start?”

“Instead of walking until I find another thing to avoid?”

“Maybe. Down the street and back. No errands.”

Jack looked toward the dark window. “Or I could wash these.”

“You could.”

“I’m not sure two cups are going to break a spell.”

“Neither am I.” William took a last sip. “But we’d have two clean cups.”

For a while neither spoke. A pipe clicked behind the wall. Jack rubbed a thumb along a dry splash on the counter.

“I don’t want to turn this into another plan I’ve failed by breakfast.”

“Then just the cups. Not the whole kitchen.”

Jack ran the tap. The water was cold at first, and he waited with his hand beneath it. William moved the tea out of reach of the spray and picked up the drying cloth.

“Still feel lousy?” William asked.

“A bit.”

Jack washed one cup, including the brown line under the rim, and passed it over. He reached for the second without opening another cupboard.