Waking Up

• Jeremy Smith, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2013

Waking up.
The teapot duly considered its predicament. It weighed up the situation. It grumbled slightly. It thought about life and other mundane things, about how it was constantly filled, heated, and then tipped out. Interestingly, it did not care too much about this; it was its job after all.
The temperature rose.
The teapot considered this fact and shied away from the inside water, rising in temperature, feeling uncomfortably sweaty as the steam built up.
The temperature rose.
The teapot was getting annoyed now; there was simply no capacity to consider its predicament in life because of the incessant rumbling from the inside.
The water was boiling.
This time, the teapot in question could not stand it. It was angry; the water was now leaping about inside the teapot and doing somersaults, generally being merry, content that all was well.
The teapot was angry, so angry; it did what it did every time that burning feeling hit it. The teapot swore, this time it was the loudest swear in the history of swearing, perhaps in the history of teapot swearing*.
*Teapot swearing is an annual contest in which selected candidates would pour water in their chambers and set themselves to boil, such acts have been hugely publicized. The loudest teapots swear is measured at a considerable 93.4 decibels.
This particular teapot-swear roused the sleeping but disgruntled mind of Samuel Lavish; a man who, quite simply, hated his job. If the casual observer were to guess that this particular man hated his job, he would be incorrect; Mr Samuel Lavish loathed his job, went into the miry depths of depression over the thought of waking up in order to go to work, and, not so coincidently, he hated his job. He would have the gloomiest of faces; depressed in such a way that the toughest of common observers, the most manly of friends, could let a tear loose.
Mr Samuel poured himself a coffee, thought better of it, and poured three, basking in the aroma of the rather shoddy instant powder coffee, and downed them consecutively. After these he walked into the bathroom to stare at the mirror, to threaten his face to look less tired and apathetic. He was unsuccessful; predictably, so he then gave up on this venture and proceeded to put his socks on. Five minutes later, he proceeded to put the other sock on, halfway through putting his other sock on, he considered taking them off and going to bed again, to regroup, and wake up when he felt the world would be more accepting of his sub-optimal visage.
The alarm, nine minutes later, chimed with its white-noise-filled-AM-broadcasted-talkback-radio-blur and was hit on the top of the head. He didn’t mind this, as he was consistently hit over the head at 7:00 am, 7:09 am and 7:18 am and so forth, until such a time the source of this head bashing successfully stopped hitting him and decided to get up; an hour after it was initially set.

The teapot duly considered his predicament, weighing up the situation. It grumbled slightly . . .