In a master’s house, there lived a little cup.  Truth be told, he was but a simple mug, and lived, as mugs indeed do, a very simple life.  Routinely, he was summoned from his apartment in the wooden cabinet, wherein he lived atop a shelf aside many of his kith and kin, and was made to stand a while in the presence of his master atop a table, at either morning, noon, or evening, in order to bear and offer his master drink.

When his simple task was accomplished, he would then be gathered with others as they too came off duty, where they would all receive their bath in the sink, and be dried upon the rack, before finally being returned to their individual quarters.

This little cup, being but a modest mug, boasted no fancy form, such as a goblet or a wine-glass would; neither did he flaunt any elaborate etchings or gilded designs, or publicize any pictorial prints, as did many another cup whom he knew to enjoy the special privilege of being brought out solely during celebratory or ceremonial occasions, in which they would be put on display before many a guest from whom they’d often receive a word of praise.  Thus, to his own appreciation, he was much too common and insignificant a household object.  And on account of this, he began to dream that his life would be better experienced as something else.

Eventually, he decided he would be happier as an umbrella, particularly as umbrellas got to go out and see the world.  To his thinking, he figured that if he could, without leak, retain liquid right-side up, then he would just as perfectly deflect it upon being turned upside down; and that, if from that position then held up by his handle, just as umbrellas have and are, he could adequately provide a person a degree of covering, perhaps more so after the fashion of a top-hat, which he’d heard to have brims, just as he knew himself to have.  “I could go right over the head” he thought,” just as well as any one of them”.

Although being sternly warned against his decision by all in the house, he was nevertheless given leave by no less than his master to go through with his plan, whereupon he left his warm and dry cabinet to go and live in the damp bin by the drafty door in which was kept the often wet and cold umbrellas—an environment so near and similar to the outdoor one which those implements had been sufficiently crafted to contend with, that, unlike himself, they thought nothing unfavorably of their damp conditions.

But our little cup knew that sacrifices were to be expected with change, and thus he remained steadfast and uncomplaining in his purpose.  Yet day after day, being subjected to the constant unexpected burst of often inclement weather, while being continually passed over during the selection process in favor of any and every umbrella among whom he hopelessly waited for his own use, he began to grow disheartened.  Frequently, dirtied droplets brought in by the useful umbrellas would dowse and spatter him; and whereas the umbrellas would more or less become cleaned and rinsed in the line of their duty, he would only grow all the more spotted and stained with neglect, and tumble down to the bottom of the bin, every time they were suddenly taken up and thrust back in on him.  Therefore, he only grew the more and more sullen; and came to despise how out of place he was made to feel, as though he were not the deliberately stationed umbrella he felt himself well-suited to be, but rather only now an even less-significant cup than he’d felt himself before, as though merely having been accidently knocked into the umbrella bin through total disregard, and left there because entirely unnoticed and unmissed.

In this miserable condition, he began to miss his warm baths in the sink, and his dry cabinet, as well as serving at the master’s table; but he was much too ashamed to admit such an early failure.  He decided rather no longer to wait patiently to be noticed, but to shout out and demand usage to the next person who came along requiring an umbrella’s service.

But if he thought he felt worthless before, he only felt it so much more keenly, and intolerably so, upon acting on this impulse, as his design and appearance was then picked apart by his appraiser as being wholly inadequate to the task he sought, being of the worst possible shape and proportions, as, “Whoever heard of a handle being on the outside of an umbrella’s covering?  Should one’s hand and arm be entirely drenched so as to keep dry one small portion of their head?”  And the little cup was laughed to scorn.

“You may not have been the worst cup, but you are most certainly the worst umbrella,” he was told.  And when, later on, he sadly confessed to feeling extremely worthless, he was plainly informed by the umbrellas, “You have no worth because you forsake your proper use!  Simply be what you are, and you’ll find duty enough—and duty as dignified as you will ever achieve in this life; that’s the truth!”

But the little cup, judging these words hurtful and unfair, remained determined to find success as something else, and to do things his own way, and not merely the way it had been predetermined for him to behave.  And so he forsook being an umbrella, and went so far as to forsake the entire house wherein he was known, one day slipping out the door, just as it was being opened, and taking to the wide open streets of the greater world.

There, in his travels, many came upon him desiring to recruit him into their service as a cup; but whenever he rejected their arrangement in offer of an unconventional proposal, they simply moved on, always with the same expressed judgment that he would never be happily employed as anything else but a cup, which made our little cup only all the more determined to prove them all wrong.

At last, he was come upon by a man who positively assured him that he could find many unconventional uses for him that would even serve to make him a far more popular vessel than he ever was and certainly ever could have become, upon remaining the simple and ordinary cup that he had unfortunately been fashioned at his birth.  These words delighted the little cup exceedingly; and in his ecstasy, he readily consented to go with the stranger, where he found himself, later that evening, brought into a dimly lit chamber, further dimmed by the lingering haze of a smoky atmosphere, and placed, all by himself (as he couldn’t help but happily notice), near the center of a round table, around which was gathered a numerous company, all of whom were grinning and carrying on quite boisterously.

Thus delivered to this uproarious group, he was shocked to find himself ill-used and subjected to even vulgar treatment, being passed freely about the table to every individual who needed to expectorate or knock off the charred tip of their used tobacco products.  Escaping the scene was made evidently impossible among this brutish lot, and their proprietor—the strange man who had employed him—laughingly exclaimed in response to his protests, “I’ve only held up what I’ve promised, and gave you more use than you formerly enjoyed!  What more could a cup of your stature possibly expect, if discontent with the original purpose for which he was made?”  And when finally his sore treatment came to an end, and his vile contents were hurled from him, he was surprised to find himself the following morning being rinsed over a bath that looked quite similar to the one he was accustomed to in his former life at home.  But it was a quick and comfortless shower that he was treated to, which left him still much bespotted; and, instead of being dried and placed in a pleasant and lofty cabinet apartment, he was given some low, dingy, and undignified dwelling where he was to await future use in the same capacity he’d lately experienced.  As a result, he made up his mind to flee the establishment, and did so at the first opportunity.

More disconsolate and dejected than ever before, he soon found himself serving in the streets alongside a hobo, collecting the meager change given the pair out of pity; the infrequent clang of which only made him keenly resonate with the extreme hollowness and emptiness of his situation.  Here, however, did he obtain steady use, and use more dignified than the kind that he was given to immediately before, yet “dignified” was hardly the word to describe it.  He was constantly exposed to the weather and to the street filth which habitually swept up against him, was frequently cold, and grew always the more stained and filthier; and not even his associate took the slightest pleasure in him so as to savor the moment of his use like his original master would do, but was himself at all times forlorn and diminished same as he.  Thus, he could not help but pine after his original home, and involuntarily seek for his master’s face in that of every passerby, particularly in those of the charitable ones who bowed in closely down before him, although he looked upon each only ever askance and ever with a fearful pang of the greater shame which he knew would be his upon locking eyes with his estranged master.

He understood now, clear as day, that a cup could and therefore should hope for no more than the life and duty of the kind of cup it was; that purpose, self-worth, and design were inextricably linked; and that now, who would want a cup, serving in the capacity of such, after it had been given over to such debase mistreatment and abuse which he had brought upon himself.  In short, he was ruined now, and only fit to continue in his present service until, being fit no longer for even that, he was to be given over to the garbage heap.

But, little did he know, he was remembered, even so as to be still desired in fact; and the one who remembered him was the one whose initials, unbeknownst to himself, were embossed upon the underside of his unseen base.  And though it was some time in coming, the day did finally come, being welcomed as though dawning radiantly upon a slew of dreary days that had been to him all the same, where the master’s recognizing gaze was permitted to fix itself upon those hidden initials, to the end that he was immediately purchased from the hobo, taken home, and thoroughly bathed in the warm suds such as he’d known before, then dried among his kith and kin in the familiar rack, and tucked affectionately away in his old cabinet quarters.  In no time at all, he was returned to duty at his master’s table, which saw him filled up with warmth to the very brim.  The private moment that followed between he and his master was tacitly savored by the pair: he feeling the warmth of his master’s hands wrapped around the inner warmth emanating from his own sides in return, and the master’s breath inhaling the aroma steaming from his open top, before each sipping kiss was awarded to his brow.  At long last, in a way which the little cup had never previously known and enjoyed, though merely being restored to his ordinary station, he felt himself deeply and totally fulfilled.

The End