One day when I woke up, for whatever reason, I realized I had a deep sense of emptiness within me. On the surface, I had everything that was considered a sign of success. I had my own apartment, paid for by a job that I worked regularly and which brought me an average income. I drove my own car, enjoyed an occasional drink with friends, and went out on dates when the mood struck me. All in all, I was supposed to be fulfilled. Yet still, as I put my head down at night, I found myself with a weariness, slowly eating at me more and more every day. I needed something more, some cause to devote myself towards outside of my everyday life. I had talked to my friends, my family, yet none of them were able to provide me anything which could fulfill me.
So, one day I decided to take a chance that would change my life for the better. I decided to adopt a baby smurf.
The diminutive little creatures, often thought off as pests from a bygone era, roamed the hills in little clans and communes, cultivating the smurfberry from which they preferred to eat. They were not the smartest creatures, though they seemed to have a rudimentary language which they used to communicate amongst themselves. People tended to dislike them, as they spread smurfberry infestations and cause annoyance with their jovial antics. The neighborhood which I now live used to be home to many smurfs until they were forced out by human development. Their numbers are now managed, kept in zoos or as exotic pets, but you can still see some of them running around the streets and bushes at night.
After coming out of work one day, I turned opposite of my usual path and walked into town to the pet store. I had planned this event for a while, spending the previous days tidying the apartment and moving things around for the new life I would be living. Giddy, I tried to control my heart rate as the bell rang when I opened the door and stepped in. The bored man behind the front desk straightened up and welcomed me inside. I walked up to him and told him that I was interested in purchasing a smurf. There was a flicker in his eye as he suddenly brightened up, paying me his full attention.
"It was not often I have a fellow fan come in asking for smurfs, are you collector or breeder?" he asked as he clasped his hands together.
"To be honest, I am actually new when it comes to smurf raising but I have always been an admirer," I responded.
"Wonderful, we can always use new people coming in and keeping the hobby alive. "Come this way please," he said as he led me through the store.
There were a great many glass cases on the walls all around us, with various care products dispersed throughout. We snaked through the many stacks of goods until we came to the back where there was a large viewing cage in the middle of the store. Inside the cage, the floor was covered in aspen shavings and there were colorful plastic toys and hideouts which were strewn about randomly. I stared at the assemblage with amazement, as the vastness of my new hobby started to fill me. My new friend came beside me and whistled. Slowly at first, I could see a slight quaking in the shavings, then the movement grew until a patch of the cage came to life. From underneath the shavings came the yawning and stretching of what looked to be about a dozen infant smurfs. Their small blue hands came out from the shavings and they pulled themselves up from out underneath. They were sleepy at first, until they saw the worker, then they started to make their high pitch squeaks and squeals. One by one, they woke each other up and made a tired shuffle towards us, their arms outstretched as they continued making their babbling sounds. I was taken at first, by their nakedness from the lack of a hat, as the ones which I had seen in the wild were different and had all manner of caps. I asked the worker and he told me that the wild ones received their hats from the troops which they lived in. When I asked why theirs looked different, he informed me that giving them a hat would bond them to the person doing it. The ones available here had either been left by their previous owners or had been donated from rescues so that they could find a home. Satisfied with that answer, I began to look at the small crowd gathered before me, trying to gauge which of the small creatures I wanted. As I looked around, I saw a sudden movement which caught my eye, a baby smurf which was looking around. It had a certain intelligence to me, maybe it was the way it looked around or the way it scanned the environment. As the others were far too busy trying to get my attention, this one was peering its head in each of the little hideouts. As it came to one shaped like a large golf ball, a sudden squeaking was heard as a smaller smurf came out and was hugged by the smart one. The smaller smurf's crying was tapered off by the smarter ones soothing as it carried it over to us. Its bright eyes looked up at me as it sucked on its thumb and clutched the smaller one to its chest. It was in my heart that at this time, I knew he was the one.
I made a signal to my friend and pointed to the one I liked. He gave me a smile as he led to a side office where he had me fill out some paper work. As I signed the final line, I made the appointment for when I would be able to come pick up my new baby smurf. The closest date I had available would not be until this upcoming Friday, fine for me as I had been waiting for this day for a long time, a couple of more days would not break me.