Elusive Words

After years of walking by them and gazing at them daily, he decided to try to read the story written on the porcelain vases by his front door. He had bought them years before, and thought then that he would read what was written on them, but never got to it. The porcelain vases were square in form, and were decorated with hand painted animals in a naïve folky style on all four sides. Around the animals, however, there were hand written journal entries, which caught his eyes from the first time he ever saw them.

Just like all things people buy, after he brought the vases home, he forgot about the writing that day, and then every time he looked at the vases he would think again about trying to read what was written on them, but he never had time for it. After all, he only looked at them when he came home after long days and had things to do, or when he was about to leave home, usually in a hurry.

But that day it would be different, he thought, since he had reserved time in his schedule specifically to analyze the vases closely. He was curious about what was written on the beautiful vases, with the charming animals painted on them. He had thought about it all day, about the stories he could find behind them, about the adventures he would learn.

So, he started trying to read the writing on the vases, when the most curious phenomenon started taking place. He couldn’t believe it, and shook his head a few times, but it kept happening: The letters moved as he tried to read them, or the words changed places, or they became other words all together. Every time he thought he had learned something, the writing became something completely different. He would recognize the word “wild” somewhere, and suddenly that word became “mild”, and then “milk”, and then it wasn’t a word anymore, but just a symbol.

After almost an hour, and a big headache, he couldn’t do it anymore. He hadn’t made any progress, and there didn’t seem to be hope. To his surprise, he wasn’t scared, or disappointed, he still wanted to know the stories written on the vases, but he understood it wasn’t the time to read them. He put the vases back by the door, hoping the stories would be ready for him one day.

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