The Mission Piece
ONCE UPON A TIME...there was a circle that was missing a piece and it was very unhappy. It went all over the world looking for its missing piece...over hills and across rivers, up mountains and down into valleys, through rain and snow and blistering sun, it went looking for its missiing piece. And wherever it went, because it was missing a piece, it had to go very slowly. So as it went along, it stopped to look at the flowers and talk to the butterflies. It stopped to rest in the cool grass. Sometimes it passed a snail, and sometimes the snail passed it. And wherever it went, it kept looking for it's missing piece.
But it couldn't find it. Some pieces were too big and some were too small: some were too square and some were too pointy. None of them fit. Then suddenly one day, it found a piece that seemed to fit perfectly. The circle was whole again; nothing was missing. It took the piece into itself and started to roll away. And now, because it was a whole unbroken circle, it could roll much faster. And so it rolled quickly through the world, past the lakes and past the forests, too fast too get a good look at them. It rolled too quickly to notice the flowers, too fast for any of the insects to fly by and talk to it. And when the circle realized that it was rolling too fast to do any of the things that it had been doing for years, it stopped...it very reluctantly put down its missing piece, and it rolled slowly away, heading out into the world, looking for its missing piece.