Once upon a time there was a girl. A tiny girl. Delicate as silver. with bones like twigs and eyes standing out like stars in her skeletal face. She moved like smoke; like a wisp; like a bird.

If I could I would carve chunks from my hips. Smooth the skin tightly over my legs. Narrow my thighs. Strech out my neck. It must be nice to be a lump of clay and not a lump.

Once upon a time there was a lump of clay. And every day the lump of clay would wish to be a Something. A Something new and beautiful. And every night it would dream of the day someone would come along and make her so. And so a year passed. And another. And another. And the lump of clay continued to be ugly and unloved and unshaped.

Then one day someone came along. And they kneaded and rolled and pulled and changed. They smoothed away the lumps and rolled out long, smooth legs and a tiny, perfect body, and pulled in a minescule waist and changed the lump of clay in to a body.

And the lump of clay wondered what it would be to be a nothing.