The ceramic horse had no chance and within one second, he had lost his head.
Only two weeks before, the fragile horse had been a plain, unpainted piece of ceramic that was sitting on a shelf. Life was much simpler back then without the drama of young children, carelessly playing around it. However, the peace that the animal had would be short lived.
For what the horse was unprepared to deal with was a birthday party at a ceramic paint studio. The horse sat there quietly mixed between many other breakable animals, just being ordinary. A young girl who had been looking long and hard for the perfect item locked eyes with the colorless creature. The little hands grabbed the horse and was placed on a table with a little more force than what it ever experienced.
The horse should have expected the three coats of paint that followed. Smothered with brown, black and green paint, the horse was no longer plain. The joys of being wet with paint were short lived as the child took the horse to a drying station and was blasted by a hair dryer. When the ceramic piece was dried, he was placed on a shelf where a little sanity was believed to be had at. Sadly, the horse was poorly mistaken once more as he was glazed by adult hands and put into an oven for the paint to cure. After the trip to the oven, the horse finally got the quietness he longed for.
A week later, the child’s parents received a call that the horse was ready to be picked up. To the dismay of the ceramic piece, the young girl was able to take the horse everywhere for about three days until it found a home on a desk. Placed next to a computer, the horse appeared to have found a safe space until it was not anymore.
An even younger pair of hands grabbed a hold of the horse, and the ceramic piece hit the desk with brute force. The horse’s neck snapped cleanly and when the painter saw her masterpiece in two, she cried. The mother of the children was a crafty woman who knew what needed to be done. A layer of tack glue around the cracked neck fixed the broken horse and after a day of drying, the horse was whole again. He was spared the fate of a garbage can, at least for now!
