A TEAPOT IS MERCURIAL

A teapot is mercurial. Every time it is placed on the stove, it undergoes a series of random and sudden mood shifts. It begins jovial, beckoning its human master forward with idealistic bargains of a quick, warm drink. It shivers with delight as its interior is filled by a deluge of cool carte blanche water, anxious to tame the independent liquid. Next, it is placed on the warming hot plate, appearing stolid and laconic in its efforts to fulfill its purpose. It hides its struggle and its frustration, its trepidation of failure incarnated in its impatience for heat to permeate its contents. It grows overstrung, fighting its instincts to be remiss, to suffer from an oversight. Gradually, it becomes surly, furious at the still-cool water inside, implacable by the agonizing heat underneath itself, desperate to appease its master. Finally, at the peak of its success, it lets out a victorious roar, the raucous noise compelling its master to return, to rescue it from the scalding heat assaulting it. Imbued with pride from the approbation of its master, the teapot quiets to its sotto voce, subdued by its use. Afterwards, its evasive master places the teapot on a cool plate, no longer requiring its assistance, abandoning it to elegiacally leech its remaking heat into an unworthy, greedy surface. It indignantly waits, simmering in its unfair punishment, blaming its master for forsaking it, for not giving it more purpose. It only desires to please; why leave it absent of comradeship, alone except for its regret of not philandering? It grows grave, resolving itself to prove its worth. And once its master returns, it attempts to enthrall them once more, providing false promises, until, eventually, the cycle begins again. And the teapot wallows in its shifting disposition for all eternity.