Teardrop

Jonas cried. Time and again. He cried constantly. This time, his sister had taken his car away from him because she wanted to annoy him. He threw himself on the ground, hammered on the stones with both hands and squeezed a few tears out of his eyes to lend more expression to his frustration. Several tears rolled out of his eyes. One of the teardrops rolled out very quickly and hurried to get away from Jonas.

The teardrop thought, 'Finally! Finally I can get away from Jonas. This spoilt little boy. He bawls so much and is always so obstinate that I don't want to be with him any longer. He always pretends as if he is terribly sad, but it's all a performance to get his own way. I'll roll away — far away from Jonas — and look for a cheerful face.'

She rolled quickly away from Jonas, out to the garden gate and across the street. She followed the street until she came to a green meadow. There, she discovered a stall with pigs and cows inside. She rolled on in to see if any happy animals lived there and if she had found a new home. Lots of cows stood in big box enclosures side by side. The pigs were all in a big pen.

'Hello,' said the teardrop. 'Are you guys happy?'

'Mooooooo,' grumbled the cow. 'No we're not. Do you see the big paddock in front of our stall? We're only allowed to look at it and can never go in. We truly yearn to go out there.'

'Exactly,' said the pigs, 'we're not happy either. In the paddock there's a huge mud pit in which we'd love to wallow, but we're not allowed there either. The farmer can't be bothered to gather us in when it's time for us to go back to the stall. That's why he doesn't let us out in the first place.'

The teardrop replied, 'But you have everything here. You get fodder and water and the farmer milks you regularly. On top of that, you have lots of room to walk about in your stall. It's huge. Isn't that enough for you?'

'No,' said the animals. 'We want to go out into the paddock.' And the animals continued to rant.

'Oh dear,' thought the teardrop, 'I wish I hadn't asked. Now they won't stop complaining and I have to listen to it all.'

The teardrop surreptitiously rolled out the stall exit and disappeared. She heard the animals continue to whinge for a long while. She didn't want to hear any more complaints, she wanted to see a happy face at last, and with it, have a new home.

She rolled on further and arrived in the next town. There, she came upon a school. Lots of children were running around the schoolyard. She rolled to a corner of the schoolyard and looked around. Her eyes fell upon a group of bickering girls.

'That's my doll,' bawled one girl.

'No,' screamed another big girl in response, 'that's mine. I found it in a classroom.'

'But I lost her,' cried the first girl.

'So what? Finders keepers,' called the big girl.

And so the blubbering began.

'I need to get out of here quickly,' the teardrop thought to herself and rolled on.

On her way in search of a cheerful face, the teardrop came past a nursing home. She rolled on in and met an old man who lay in bed.

'Are you happy?' asked the teardrop.

'Why should I be happy?' replied the old man. 'I'm lying here in bed, rejected by my family and no one wants me anymore.'

'But you can't walk anymore,' replied the teardrop. 'How can your family look after you? You're well taken care of and get the help you need here — and you have other residents to play with and talk to. Furthermore, your family does visit you often. Why can't you be happy here?'

'I don't want to be happy here,' answered the man.

'Oh no,' thought the teardrop. 'Not another one who wants to be miserable and is the cause of his own problems.'

She rolled quickly out of the nursing home.

She came to a garden in which two families with children were having a barbecue. They were griping about the cloudy sky, and the missed opportunity to have a barbecue and lie in the garden when it was sunny.

The teardrop didn't roll any closer to the garden. She could already see their pinched faces and didn't even want to ask why they weren't happy.

She rolled under a tree and wondered if she would ever find a happy face. She had all but given up hope. All the faces that she had met so far were miserable and couldn't even feel happy about little things. They all wanted something they couldn't have, and consequently, they were unhappy. But the teardrop herself hadn't really wanted to make the world a better place either. She only wanted to be happy herself — and therefore she would have to find her own way to make herself happy.

While she was deeply absorbed in her thoughts, she came past a hospital. She rolled inside and ended up in the ward for disabled children. She met a little smiling boy who was sitting in a wheelchair.

'How can you smile even though you can't walk?' asked the teardrop.

'I would be happy to explain it to you,' replied the boy. 'I have been lying in this ward for a while. I had an accident and now I can't move my legs anymore. I had to learn how to use a wheelchair and how to play with other children without being able to move my legs. Because of that, I spent a long time apart from my family and was by myself the whole time. Now the time has come in which I've been given my own wheelchair and I can go back home to my family. I've learnt here how to live with my disability and how to come to terms with it. Now that my family is about to arrive and take me home, I'm glad that I'm okay and that I won't be alone anymore.'

'You are such a nice, contented boy,' said the teardrop. 'You are the first happy face I've met, even though you actually have plenty of reason to be unhappy. May I stay and go back home with you? I so wish for a happy, cheerful home.'

'Sure,' said the little boy in the wheelchair. 'I could use a good little friend.'

_{Sent in by S. Semelka, Bochum}