Everybody thinks it's okay to handle a dish however they want to but I say no. This is the tale of a manhandled dish and I hope that as my pieces are packed together into the trash can, my sacrifice can make the rest of the dishes to be treated better.
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I was shipped all the way from my parent in China to somewhere everyone referred to as “The States”. It was a beautiful place, filled with beautiful people who had either white, brown, black, or red hair. I liked the hair the most even when the people there didn't like hair in their dishes. I really wondered though but never got to know why.
I was taken to a fancy store where I was placed on display along with several others of my brothers and sisters, cups, spoons, serving trays, and saucers, there were a whole lot of us. At first, I didn't associate with any of them, but when I learned that more than half of them came from parents in China, they soon became my best friends.
Day in and Day out those people of “the states” came to pick from the lot of us, I heard they took them to a place called ‘home’ where they were made to serve important people in the society. I too wanted to serve important people, after all, that was basically what we were meant for.
My wish soon came through when some of those people came back, this time with a smaller version of the one with cropped short hair. At first, I identified these people by their hair because it was just easier but with time, I saw that two or more people could have the same hair so I began to learn their names.
And they called the small version of the people “cute little boy” or “Demian”.
It was Demian who chose me.
He lifted one of those chubby little fingers and pointed them towards where I sat, observing the people's family.
“I want that one,” he said. I turned to the dishes sitting beside me and they raised their brows at me.
“It's you bro, go for it” a cup whispered to me. I was taken down from the shelf and handed over to Demain.
“This is what you want?” The other person with the longer hair asked him. He nodded excitedly. I was exchanged for a few notes and packaged nicely for this small person. “Alright honey, let's go home,” she told him.
Finally, I too was going to a place called ‘home' where I could serve important people.
Home was a good place, as beautiful as the beautiful people who lived in it. Immediately we arrived at it, Demain demanded to have some food with his new dish.
The long-haired person who was called “mom” quickly took me out of the nice packaging and served Demain a meal with me. I didn't know if Demain was someone important but since I was useful enough to serve someone, I was so excited.
I enjoyed my first day serving Demain, he couldn't take his eyes off the blue flowery design that was done by my parent all around my body, he kept turning me and tracing his little fingers around me. I almost didn't recover from the soft ticklish effects of his fingers till the next day.
When Demain was done with his meal, he dropped me in the sink with other dishes.
“Oh, a new member” one of the old dishes rolled his eyes.
“Welcome, we hope you enjoy your stay” another one hissed. I didn't know why they were so angry but I said nothing, I was soon about to find it all out for myself.
Every morning, Mom prepared a meal for Demain and dropped me in the sink right after he was done. I didn't get cleaned up until it was time for another meal the following morning. On one or two occasions when Demain said he didn't want me, Mom took out another plain white dish and served him with it.
I became very unhappy for having to sit in that sink for hours without being cleaned, I became smelly and developed a dirty stain inside of me.
The other person with cropped hair, Dad, returned home late and was always upset about seeing me sitting dirty in the sink. He was the one who cleaned us up and returned us carefully to the dishes rack.
He kept saying Demain was big enough to clean his own dishes but mom said no.
The day I died, I decided I was tired of living. I was tired of being treated meanly by Demain and Mom so I intentionally slipped off Mom's hand that morning as she was cleaning me up for Demain and fell on her feet drawing blood and pain from her.
Dad came along and helped to pick me up in the trash.
“Henceforth, Demain does the dishes in this house immediately after each meal. You're too tired to do all of this yourself, look at your eyes” he told Mom.
I smiled contentedly to myself. If Demain would do the dishes after each meal then the other dishes would be clean and happy again.
My sacrifice paid off