Hello, it's me, Lily, a frog who lives in a pond and loves to tell stories.

This story is The Anger Monster, an original story by Marlene Werfel for Tales from the Lily Pad, inspired by a Buddhist allegory. The Once there was a servant boy who lived in a beautiful castle surrounded by lush jungle, tall palms and moats, teeming with lily pads.

The castle was full of important men and women with important jobs.

Their jobs were so important that the servant boy didn't even know what they did.

It looked like nothing at all except hurrying around in impressive

hats and swirling robes and addressing each other with formal titles. They were chancellors,

chiefs, and ministers. They were Chamberlains, priors, and treasurers. The servant boy was not important. He had the lowliest

job in the castle, which was to empty chamber pots into the castle moats. The chamber pots

were heavy and stinky, and everybody plugged their nose and looked down and disgust as the servant boy walked by.

Nobody should see you carrying chamberpots, said the steward.

In this beautiful castle, you should be invisible.

The servant frowned at the steward. You should be invisible,

he said back, and he stonped his foot and jutted out his gin. The steward gasped and whispered something to the prior, who whispered something to the chancellor. They all shook their

heads, said the servant boy, disrespectful, said the prior. Insolent, said the chancellor. You must not

walk through the castle halls with chamber pots, said the steward. Take the long way, carry the

pots out the closest door and walk outside the castle with them.

The boy sulked when he heard this. He would have to walk past all the monks who meditated just outside the castle from sunrise to sunset, and he didn't like the monks at all.

They just sat there, cross-legged, staring right

through him and never smiled or said anything, even if he waved and said, hello there. But things

got even worse for the servant boy, because then the prior said he would talk to the master of dogs

and assign one of the king's

guard dogs to follow him around from now on, since he was disrespectful and insolent to make sure

...