Magpie Tale#18 A Coronation Mug

It all had to be straight.

The desk, the laptop, paper and the office chair. She straightened the two baskets on the desk, the one basket with new paper and the other one ready for the typed story. She straightened the pot of pencils, in the coronation mug and the memories came flooding back. The mug had come from her Aunt’s china cabinet after she had died. It had stood in that cabinet for as long as she could remember, along with a George V plate, and a George V cup and saucer, the Elizabeth II coronation mug and a mug commemorating Charles and Diana’s wedding. Given the choice of which she had wanted, she had chosen that mug, because it reminded her of Edward VIII. It was her pencil pot and as she looked at it, she smiled. Such a romantic story of love when he gave up the throne for Wallace; she thought it would inspire her to write her romances that were her income. What would he have thought she wondered, if he knew that his short-lived life as King had been reduced to pencils in his commemorative mug? She shrugged and looked again at the blank screen, it was no good, her publisher had phoned and phoned for the next three chapters, and writers block had set in, not one single idea came to her. She moved the mug with the pencils; it wasn’t quite in the right spot. Everything had to be straight otherwise she couldn’t concentrate and the ideas wouldn’t come. She moved the corner of one of the baskets, it had to be straight, she looked at the mug again, and turned it so she could see the crest fully, was it in the right spot? Her fingers hovered over the keys and still her mind was blank. She fidgeted in the chair, was her laptop straight to the edge of the desk surface, perhaps she should sharpen all the pencils again? What was wrong, everything was straight but the ideas just wouldn’t come.