The Butcher and the Teapot

The Butcher and the Teapot


The teapot had been placed among some bushes and left to rot. However, teapots don’t rot and so it was eventually found by a butcher. This butcher was an unusual butcher as at that point he was not in his butcher shop, sharpening cleavers and selling dead animals but was in the wild trying to appreciate them. This was quite hard for him to do as he could just picture the things scampering around on meat hooks in his shop. No one would probably buy them but he could always make it into a display, like shop in Paris with all the rats in the window. The butcher was a well travelled man as his wife was frivolous and loved pleasure so that each year the butcher stirred himself and took her to a new country. To begin with the countries were close, they visited Ireland, Scotland and Wales until she complained and asked for something bigger and better. He complied as he wanted to keep her happy but had to work a lot harder. He set up a mail order business for the elderly people. He had to find more ways of making more money. He embezzled money from his village finds but nobody noticed or cared as the whole council were too old to even understand the concept of money anymore. This was how he, a plain butcher, had ended up trekking in a rainforest. He was angry so when he saw the teapot of white porcelain with gilt edges, he stood on it. It had been a joke but Gladys, his wife, had been shocked.

“That teapot could have been important to someone,” she gasped
“Important enough for them to leave it here?” His voice was dripping with scorn.
“It could have been an antique. Now it is lost forever, the most precious things are the easiest to break, you know”
“An antique. Crown derby in the jungle? I believe you.”
“You hate me. I know you do. Always sneering at me and reminding me of how hard you work although sometimes you’re ill. I don’t want to have a holiday which is paid for by you, if all you think is that it is a chore which has to be performed to keep me cooking and cleaning for you. Well I have news for you, as soon as we get home I won’t be your slave anymore, I’m leaving.”

The butcher choked. He had expected this, thought he wouldn’t care but he did. “Have you been seeing someone?”

“A man better than you in everyway who cares for me with every fibre of his being. I may look like an old bag to you with no point in life but to use your money. You keep your money close; you pay for what is wanted and nothing more. We don’t have a guide, I didn’t think about it at the time so we don’t have one. Now there are just two of us in this jungle. Why do you bother?”
“Calm down Gladys.” The butcher had given up hope and felt as fractured as the teapot at his feet. Suddenly he looked up with a new light in his eyes, it was not one of hope but one of a desperate kind of despair. He bent down and picked up a shard of the teapot. “Do you know what this represents? Our marriage. I’ve ruined it. It was a beautiful thing but I broke it.” With this he lent forward and cut her throat. He loved her too much to let her go. He thought he hadn’t but the revelation had come too late. She had said that she looked an old bag to him but she was an old bag whom he loved. The blood poured out, he watched his wife weeping her life away. He bought the stained shard to his own throat and while drawing the last breath he sighed in a hoarse whisper, “I love you.”

The wife lived for seconds more but could not speak. Not because her throat was wounded but because she had no words to express her feelings.