The teapot, cups, saucers, spoons and a candle sat on the table. They had quite the wonderful time and spent many hours in conversation. One teacup got to become friends with the candle. I suppose this is not so outrageous, however, the teacup felt it necessary to put the candle in its place.
"We can never be best friends. I am sorry. I hope you understand, but you see the rest of us are all parts of a tea set except you. I want to continue to be part of a tea set, so my best friend must be another teacup or the teapot or something more like me."
The candle was fine just to be friends. The teacup wanted to make a point and spent less and less time with the candle and more and more time with the other members of the tea set. It did not want to lose its identity, after all. The teapot was happy about this and encouraged the teacup to spend less and less time with the candle. The teacup never gave a thought to the motives of the teapot. It simply went along, often leaving the candle alone.
One day, a book was placed on the table. The candle and the book spoke and got along famously. The candle's teacup friend felt that this was not right. How could someone else take the candle's attention? That attention was rightfully the domain of the teacup! It tried to be civil, but was not very convincing and the book was offended. The candle tried to placate them both, but neither would give any ground. When the book went off to the bedroom nightstand, the candle went along, too.
The teacup cried out, "How could you leave me like this?"
"We are supposed to belong to things like us, remember? You are already part of a tea set. You don't need me, you said so. I am now part of the nightly reading. The book and I are kin. We belong together like you belong with your tea set."
The teacup was devastated. It finally realized what it had done. It had purposefully made the candle feel not a part of the tea set. It had intentionally drawn boundaries and made up definitions of what belonging was. It finally convinced the candle of those boundaries, and that it didn't belong. Now the teacup sits in darkness with the teapot, the other teacups, saucers and spoons. They speak of what bad manners it is for the candle to believe it belongs with a book and not with the tea set! They can all still see the light from the candle through the crack in the door. Things are not the same without it.
Author notes
People are forever shooting themselves in the foot to follow convention. If you choose convention over another person, you had better be ready to take full responsibility for that choice.
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Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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this is a wonderful tale. The last two sentences are shaped so impeccably, and bring the point home beautifully!
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This is dripping,cascading, climaxing, etc...your wit is only bested by your charm...
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This is a great story, with such a marvelous moral -- creative and thought-provoking at the same time. Well done!
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very very true, love it... sometimes we become so self absorbed that we forget to look around and appreciate what make us us...
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Too damn clever here, how we ostracize people without thought to feelings or how different on the outside is no different to what we all are inside. It's brilliant
C And who said the cowardly lion was the only one who finally got a heart and roared 
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how true of todays society, we convience others they do not belong (even if we want them too), just to save face with others, then when they do go away we get mad they left -then try to bully them away from the other people out of fear of really being alone, and really being a bad person ourselves. then when they leave we gossip to our group of people we have learnt to stick by just because it was easy or convenient.
great write i enjoyed it a lot.
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Superb Plus
Ah, 'tis a mighty fine write, and what a wonderful parable. You might enjoy two of my poems, which are entitled: "Stereotypes", and "In the Box". Here are the links, if you would like to read them:
http://allpoetry.com/poem/2140139
http://allpoetry.com/poem/2200075 -
well...that was not what i thought it was going to be, but it a good way. seems much of life goes on this way inorder to keep our identities. its interesting how you added the gossiping part at the end among the tea set. added some other realism to it. point well done.
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good poem I like it
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very well done
bravo
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This has a great and very true message. Too bad people are still too focused on placing boundaries and dividing each other... (no, you can't play with him because he's a foreigner / no, don't talk to her, she's a muslim [and so on, and so on...]).
Very good story, indeed... I'm glad I noticed the title, that says ''prose- read it anyway''.
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And i still dont get it.
I still dont understand Prose...but regardless its something dif and dif means change and change is something new and whether that newness is good or bad is up to the idiodic masses of the world.....i applaud you and your "prose"
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good
i would have never guessed the moral to be what it is, that interesting. i guess i never seen it that way. nice job on the write though. it was very interesting to read.
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This is absolutely wonderful ... and pretty damn wise too
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