The Cup That Wouldn't Fill
A kid keeps trying to fill a cup that keeps draining, until she notices the crack at the bottom.
There was once a little blue cup with a flower painted on the side. It sat on the kitchen counter looking perfectly normal. From the outside, you would never know.
A kid named Jovi found the cup one sunny morning and decided she was thirsty. She held the cup under the tap and turned the water on.
The cup filled up. Jovi smiled.
She set the cup down on the table to go grab a cookie. When she came back, the cup was empty.
"Hm," said Jovi.
She filled the cup again. She watched it carefully this time. The water sat there, glittering. She turned away to grab a napkin. When she turned back, the cup was empty.
"HM," said Jovi.
She filled the cup a third time. She set it down. She did not look away. She stared right at it.
The water level slowly, slowly, slowly went down. By the time Jovi blinked, the cup was empty again.
Jovi picked up the cup. She tilted it. She looked inside. She shook it. She held it up to the light. She put it back under the tap and tried again, harder this time, like the water just needed more force.
The cup filled. The cup emptied. Jovi got mad.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" she said to the cup.
The cup, of course, did not answer. Cups don't.
Jovi tried filling it faster. The water came out the bottom faster. She tried filling it slower. The water came out the bottom slower. She tried plugging the top of the cup. The water still came out the bottom.
Jovi flipped the cup upside down on the counter and stomped off to find a different cup.
A long time later — maybe an hour, maybe a whole afternoon — Jovi came back. She was less mad now. She was curious.
She picked up the cup again. She turned it slowly in her hands. She looked at the painted flower. She looked at the rim. She looked at the bottom.
There it was.
A crack. A tiny, hair-thin crack, running across the bottom of the cup. So small you could almost miss it. So small that until you saw it, you would swear it wasn't there.
"Oh," said Jovi.
She wasn't mad anymore. She wasn't frustrated. She just looked at the crack.
"You don't have a cup problem," she said softly. "You have a crack problem."
She thought about that for a while.
She didn't have any cup glue. She wasn't sure if cup glue was a real thing. The cup couldn't really hold water for drinking anymore, not the way a cup is supposed to.
But Jovi was the kind of kid who didn't throw things away just because they couldn't do their first job.
She walked outside, into the back garden, where her mother grew basil and mint and a little patch of thyme. The dirt there was always thirsty. Always.
Jovi set the cracked cup down right next to the basil, painted-flower-side facing the sun. She filled the cup with water from the watering can. The water did what it always did. It slowly, slowly leaked out of the bottom, into the dirt, into the roots of the basil.
The basil drank it slow. The way basil likes.
Jovi sat down in the grass and watched the cup drain. This time she didn't mind. This time the draining was the whole point.
She went inside. She got a cookie. She came back. She sat down again.
The cup was almost empty. The basil looked greener already, or maybe she was imagining it.
Jovi smiled at the cup.
The cup, of course, did not smile back. Cups don't.
But the painted flower, in a certain light, almost looked like it did.