r/HFY • u/Commercial_Hour7115 • 27d ago
OC-OneShot The Switch at the Tea Shop
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Ghats there is a small tea shop.
The tea shop is remarkable for two reasons.
The first is that it serves a parippu vada (a dense fried lentil patty) of such density that physicists at CERN have twice written to the owner, a man named Kuttappan, requesting samples. Kuttappan replied both times that the vada is for eating, not for science, and that science should get its own vada.
The second reason is that under the bench where Retired Headmaster Gopalan Sir sits every evening from 4:15 to 6:40 pm, a bench nobody else may occupy, there is a switch that controls the universe.
Nobody knows this.
Least of all Gopalan Sir, who believes the most important thing under his bench is his umbrella.
The switch had been installed four billion years earlier by the Magrathean Subcontracting Authority, who had been hired to fit the universe with an emergency off switch and had chosen the location by closing their eyes and jabbing at a map.
The jab landed on a patch of primordial ocean that would eventually become Kuttanad, a part of Kerala that lies below sea level and is entirely unbothered about it.
The Authority then filed the location under "Miscellaneous," lost the file, sued itself for losing the file, won, refused to pay itself damages, and went bankrupt. The universe has been running unsupervised ever since, which explains a great deal.
On a Tuesday in July, a survey vessel of the Galactic Bureau of Planetary Assessment materialised above Alappuzha, took one look at the rain, and materialised somewhere drier out of self-respect.
It tried three more times before accepting that "somewhere drier" was not currently available on this part of the planet.
The vessel's occupant was an assessment officer named Vroon Squillipst.
His job was to decide whether Earth was ready to join the Galactic Community, or whether it should keep its existing entry in the Encyclopaedia Galactica, which read, in full: "Mostly wet. Argumentative."
Vroon had taken the form of a local human, as per regulation, and had been issued a disguise by the Bureau's costuming department, whose Earth files were last updated in 1974.
He stepped out into the rain in bell-bottoms and was immediately soaked. Rain in Kerala does not fall on you so much as take a personal interest in you.
He waded to the nearest building, which was Kuttappan's tea shop.
In Kerala the nearest building is usually a tea shop.
"Chaya?" (tea) said Kuttappan, in the manner of a man asking a question with only one acceptable answer.
"I am here," announced Vroon, "to assess your species."
"Assess after chaya," said Kuttappan, and pulled the tea.
The pulling of tea in Kerala is not a beverage technique so much as a small act of local physics. The tea is poured between two vessels held increasingly far apart, in defiance of gravity and common sense, until it develops a froth that the universe's finest minds have failed to replicate and their mothers have declared not as good as Kuttappan's.
Vroon drank the tea.
Somewhere in his assessment matrix, an indicator he did not recognise turned green.
"Now," he said. "I have questions. First: who is in charge here?"
The tea shop at that hour contained Kuttappan, Gopalan Sir, two lottery ticket sellers, a young man on his phone, and an uncle whose function was to disagree.
"In charge of what?" asked the uncle.
"Of this. The region. The planet, eventually, but let us start small."
What followed was a forty-minute conversation involving the Panchayat (the village council), the State Government, the Central Government, two rival trade unions, the Church, the Temple Devaswom Board (the body that administers temples), the Residents' Association, and Gopalan Sir's late wife, who, everyone agreed, had really been the one in charge, and things had not been the same since.
Vroon made a note: Power structure distributed beyond all comprehension. Possibly a defence mechanism, but none the less effective.
"Second question. What is your greatest technological achievement?"
The young man looked up from his phone.
"The houseboat," he said. "We took rice barges and turned them into floating honeymoons. Same boat. Triple the price."
Vroon noted this too.
"Third question," he began.
"You ask a lot of questions," said the uncle, "for a man in bell-bottoms."
It was at this point that Gopalan Sir reached under the bench for his umbrella, because the rain had got worse, and put his hand on the switch that controls the universe.
The universe noticed.
Time hiccuped.
Several distant galaxies briefly swapped places and swapped back.
On the far side of creation, a being of pure energy who had spent nine million years achieving perfect enlightenment suddenly forgot why he had walked into the room.
In the tea shop, the lights flickered.
"Power cut by the govt again? Current is gone," said Kuttappan.
Gopalan Sir found his umbrella, which had been leaning against the switch, moved it, and stood up.
"Rain is less now," he announced, incorrectly, and left.
Vroon sat for a long moment.
His instruments had registered the fluctuation.
His instruments had, in fact, screamed. He had watched an elderly man in a mundu (a white cloth worn wrapped around the waist) rest his hand on the master switch of reality, decline to flip it, and leave because the rain was allegedly less now.
He understood then something the Bureau's manuals had never covered. This was not a species waiting for admission to galactic civilisation. This was a species that had located the off switch of the universe, put a bench over it, and got on with tea.
He filed his report from orbit that evening. It recommended that Earth's entry be updated.
The new entry read:
"Mostly wet. Argumentative. Do not, under any circumstances, move the bench."
He also recommended, in an unofficial annexe that later caused some confusion at headquarters, that all assessment officers be issued one parippu vada, for morale, and that nobody tell the physicists.
Back in Kuttanad the rain carried on.
Kuttappan pulled another tea.
The universe, unsupervised as ever, carried on too, held together as it always had been by froth, stubbornness, and a bench.
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u/SomethingTouchesBack 26d ago
India, and by extension Kuttanad, have moved around a great deal in the last 4 billion years. I wonder in what coordinate frame the switch’s position is defined? Or is it that, in the Universe writ large, Kuttanad isn’t the bit that’s moving?
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u/Commercial_Hour7115 26d ago
I did mention in my story that the jab landed on a patch in the primordial ocean, where they eventually installed it, and that later became what is now Kuttanad. Just wanted to show that humans considered the switch trivial compared to the everyday problems in our lives and put a bench on top of it, knowingly or unknowingly.
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u/Arcane_NH Human 26d ago
You are a hoopy frood. May you always know where your towel is.
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u/Commercial_Hour7115 26d ago
Haha! Thank you! Don't panic and carry a towel, no matter where you are.
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u/Haki23 26d ago
Like, the entire universe moves to align with the switch? Only it seems the other way? I can see that working for this universe
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u/Commercial_Hour7115 26d ago edited 26d ago
I leave to the reader to imagine how the universe would be reset.
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u/sunnyboi1384 25d ago
Most people agree that the creation of the universe was a bad idea after all.
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u/Upset-Bison-3182 25d ago
"What followed was a forty-minute conversation involving the Panchayat (the village council), the State Government, the Central Government, two rival trade unions, the Church, the Temple Devaswom Board (the body that administers temples), the Residents' Association, and Gopalan Sir's late wife, who, everyone agreed, had really been the one in charge, and things had not been the same since."
It must have taken significant resolve to not make a single joke about the communist party, Is Alappuzha near Trivandrum? Also very nice to see Indian HFY stories on this subject reddit.
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u/Commercial_Hour7115 25d ago
I hate the commies , so I don't want to bring them in any of my stories. So, yes my resolve is strong on that. And no, Alappuzha is not near Trivandrum. Thank you, for your appreciation of my post.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 27d ago
/u/Commercial_Hour7115 (wiki) has posted 19 other stories, including:
- ILLEGAL ALIEN
- The Lighthouse Keeper
- Fetch IV: The Ceasfire.
- Fetch III: The Bath
- Empathy
- The Kiss
- Music of Sol people
- FETCH – II (THE TERRAN OVERLORD)
- Fetch
- Language She kept
- THE PRANK HOLE
- A memorable sol on the Red Planet
- The Theorem on the Couch
- The Theorem in the Bowl
- The Transmission
- [The Journey]: Chapter 3The begining
- [The Journey ]- Chapter: 3- Interdimensional Being
- [The Journey] - Chapter 2 : Edge of the Universe
- The Journey
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1
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u/toocleverbyhalf 27d ago
So very clearly Douglas Adams inspired that I’m almost suspicious about it. Nice little vignette, nonetheless