The upper balcony of a tall Victorian house on Franklin Street accommodated a petite coffee table surrounded by two rustic chairs. In one of these chairs sat Ernest, who found it his duty to stare out into the world and hate it.

His curled eyebrows and constant scowling created a bump on his forehead that served as a terrible awning for his eyes. He sat hunched over at his table and looked out at the street. This particular morning was quiet and the usual neighbors he hated on were nowhere to be seen. Without a walking target to shout at, Ernest looked inward and started to hate.

Dumb walls!

Stupid chairs!

Noisy birds!

In fact, Ernest liked only two things in life and both of these things were blue mugs. Both mugs adorned two geese, one on each, unbothered by the snow of speckled dots that surrounded them. The blue was dark and deep but light and bright around the handles where years of using them wore them down. One mug was tall and sturdy with the mug narrowing a bit near the top. The other was short and uniform except for the rim with a lip that made it easy to sip.

Today, the air was brisk and Ernest would soon get to hating that too, but in the meantime was made into an afterthought since the coffee and herbal tea in the two mugs made it bearable. The coffee was awfully bitter and the tea had too much sugar in it. Each sip he hated the drinks more and more, but the mugs did well and served their purpose.

When he had finished both drinks, Ernest got up from his chair and shuffled inside, still feeling its cold imprint on his back side. He carefully held the mugs close to his body until he reached the cupboard. It was nearing time for lunch.

(To be continued)

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Inspiration: My family has owned, for as long as I can remember, two blue mugs like the ones I described in the story. I have always really liked these mugs and I thought it would be fun to create a story with a scrooge like character who only liked these two mugs. Stay tuned for the continuation of the story.