One day, she stumbled across it. "Aha! I have found the perfect porcelain pig!" She shouted.
For days she escorted her pig around, showing it off to friends and family. "My search wasn't in vain." She would tell them. "Look, see, I found my perfect porcelain pig!"
After a while, the pig began to sit on the shelf. At first, she would touch it and dust it everyday. But after a while, she looked at it less and less.
One day, she noticed it was grey and fluffy, covered in dust.
"Oh my," she said, "I guess this was not my perfect porcelain pig after all."
She began searching again, determined that this time for sure, she would find her perfect porcelain pig.
At a flea market, she spotted a majestic white and blue porcelain pig. "Aha" she cried. "Finally, now this is my perfect porcelain pig!" Right away she bought it and took it around to family and friends. "See this one? Now THIS is my perfect porcelain pig!" She made sure to tell them all.
After a while, the new perfect pig took it's spot beside the other, now tucked further to the back of the shelf.
In time, the blue and white pig became dirty, and in a cleaning frenzy, she accidentally dropped and cracked the perfect porcelain pig.
"Oh darn!" She cried. "This was not my perfect porcelain pig after all!" That very day she began the hunt for another perfect porcelain pig.
Over the years, she repeated this pattern. Each pig would be perfect, though she showed it off to less and less people. Each pig would take it's place with the others. Each pig would become dusty, or dull, or cracked, or flawed.
One day, while moaning to her friend about the loss of yet another perfect porcelain pig, the friend looked at her and said.
"Have you ever noticed how each pig is perfect when you get it, yet in your care, it always somehow becomes not perfect any more?"
Shocked, she responded, quite hurt, "well if it WAS the perfect pig, it would STAY perfect. So clearly I have just not found the right one yet!"
The friend shook their head. "Of course it is, it always was. You neglected them and let them get dirty or fall off the shelf. You broke them, ignored them, and left them on their own."
Quite indignant, she stood and stomped her foot. "What kind of friend are you? If the perfect porcelain pig were truly perfect, it wouldn't matter what I did! Everybody knows that!"
Because this was her very last friend, she softened a bit and said, "but it's okay that you dont know that. I know you are just trying to be helpful."
On with her search she continued. Eventually she no longer showed off her newest perfect pigs to anyone. She had to move to a bigger house because she had run out of shelf space. Still her perfect porcelain pigs piled up, no longer perfect at all.
On her death bed, she lay. Unable to search any longer, and quite lonely. A house full of shelves and shelves of not-so-perfect porcelain pigs. A life wasted searching for what was there all along.
No comments:
Post a Comment