He awoke from a dreamless sleep, like always, because that was how his World was, where the pitch black from outside reflected the state of his mind at night. The owls looked wordlessly at each other and the animals laid as still as the wind. This and more of his moderate existence on the diagonally rotating circle of life established him, different from the rest of Them, and secured his place with the elite few of his Kind that he took a deep sense of pride in. He awoke to another Day. Or perhaps it was Night still. He did not know the difference for it did not make a difference in his World. He was awake. He was awake to start the story of an unnatural connection between a Kind and a vase. But then again, one should never try to make a story between something that had a soul and something that did not.

In the center of the room was the table. He shifted it a fourth of an inch to the right to make the edges of the sharp wood equidistant from the wall so that it lay in perfect centered synchrony with the room. Perhaps it was still Night or his eyes weren't accustomed to the Day but in the dim light formed a shadow of an object on the table that rattled due to the movement of the fourth of an inch. It was just a misplaced vase..

He did not know who left it there or why they had chosen to keep it on the table but he did not care. The vase was not in synchrony with the table that was in synchrony with the room. He moved it towards the window that faced the North of the World. He squinted. The morning light would stream in and this vase would refract the light in too many directions making it an unorthodox prism and an annoying presence. The window towards the South of the World would never get light and that would seem unfair to the old vase. So he placed it in the center - fitting and befitting of the entire room. This rare act of generosity was certainly the first of the two but he did not know that yet. The balance leaned towards the latter because people like him, They did not care about vases. Even occult vases that appeared in the middle of the Day of Night of Day. There was a bigger picture in the World, a bigger task, a bigger expedition waiting for him and there was no time for a glorified pot. No time for Grecian urns, no time for Glorified pots.

It was still there when he returned. The question of expecting it to be there never occurred because he had forgotten about it. But it intrigued him that it still stood there, patiently as if waiting to be understood. There was nothing spectacular about the vase especially because of the layers of dust collected from Those that had forgotten it in time. He stroked his fingers across the rough texture of its long neck that rested on the stout end, a trail of dust collecting at his fingertips that he delicately blew away as if the dust was going to spell its story. But it didn't. It stood as mysterious as before.

Another dreamless night and another Night of Day, he returned but this time, he expected the vase to tell him its story. He looked at the thin trail along the dust last night to reveal its true color, a deep red rustic red like that of the disappearing sun in the South. He wiped away the dust and sat back to examine the new entity from afar. It was not as ugly as he had hoped it would be and that surprised him. What difference would the beauty of lack of it make to him? But it did and so he walked away abruptly because people like him, They did not care about vases.

It was a dreamless night once more and he awoke because of the silence which seemed deafening to his ears. He stayed back, for the Day of Night and went back to his new exhibit. The window towards the North of the Sun brought things into better perspective this time around, and the vase seemed to have a dull shine around it. He looked closely at it only to discover unbridled trails of flowers and vines, entwined around the entire vase in silent mutiny but also achieving a tangible peace. A peace that became a part of him that in the future made him go back for more.

He did not sleep during the Night and was awake during the Day. He did not know if it was because of the hooting of the owls or the howling of the animals. He blamed it on the vase. It was making his Life.....louder. He walked angrily towards it only to stop short in his tracks and be pleasantly surprised by the colors that were shooting out of it. Greens and blues and yellows were shooting out while golds and silvers and bronzes burst into an orchestra of chaotic colorful harmony. He laughed and clapped his hands and slapped his thighs in raucous glee that stopped abruptly, when the mouth of the vase went silent. And then it let out a thin, shrill of gold that made his heart beat faster in nervous anticipation for another show and his mouth slowly curved into a smile while awaiting but then unexpectedly, the room became quiet again. It was as if the vase knew it was in control of his emotions and this conclusion caused the the spell to break quickly.

Another act of generosity came about his life after examining his new friend in detail. There were empty sockets where they might have been gems. Diamonds and rubies and jades placed delicately during creation and removed roughly in theft. Deep cracks and scrapes scattered around the bottoms and ridges where might have a been a smooth opening earlier. He decided to paint over it to soothe its wear and tear and also his eyes. He painted over the cracks and over the empty sockets. The pride and love he felt for the vase would have made one believe that it was he who had sculpted it from the first clay. Its renewed beauty and magnificence made him wonder what its previous owners had used it for. Did it serve to decorate with just its regal appearance alone or did it share a mutualistic relationship with flowers that it might have held, both enhancing each others beauty. When he returned, he placed 3 roses in the vase, their stems crossing each other at the base in the right angles so that the roses and the vase and the table and the room were all in perfect uniformity with his life.

And one night in the near future, he slept to his dreamless sleep and when he awoke, the familiar shadow and colors of the vase and its three roses in the dim light were missing. The vase was lying on its side and the roses had withered with age. The paint had begun to peel and the cracks reappeared. That was also when his generosity and care for the vase never appeared again. Instead, he took his finger and pushed gently at the vase and watched as it rolled over his table and fell to the ground, shattering into millions of red pieces and paint. He watched as the pieces tried to cluster and mend itself. He watched as it failed miserably because the disorder and destruction was far too great for any whiff of healing. It was not for him to fix that which was already broken to begin with. It was not for him to accept something that refused regularity in his life. It was not for him to feel and so He watched as a gentle breeze swept away the pieces as mysteriously as it had brought it in. A dull gold glitter seemed to envelope him and sweep into him in circles and then left him altogether.

He awoke from a dreamless sleep, like always, because that was how his World was, where the pitch black from outside reflected the state of his mind at night. The owls looked wordlessly at each other and the animals laid as still as the wind. But this Day or Night or whatever it could have been was different. Because he was different and he had grown something he had never seen before in his life. that had separated his Kind from the rest of the World but now stripped him of his privileges of being considered elite - testicles. And that was why the vase had temporarily entered his life, to give up its soul and help him regain a part of himself that he had lost a long time ago....