Capacity.

There was once a little bucket. Pretty little thing, with a red bucket and a black shiny handle. Her parents were proud. So proud of her.

She never really saw them, of course. She only knew that Big Daddy smoked a lot and blew lots of smoke out of his chimney when he was working and Big Mummy had spat her with her big hot mouth and that was that. She was one of many little buckets moving on a conveyer belt, all with different colours and different handles. But she was special. Why?

Because she was red and black.

Mummy had whispered to her in the few minutes she was inside Mummy that she was a beautiful rich red. Like the colour of tomatoes at the peak of their ripeness. Like the oozing allure of rubies and pomengranate seeds, little jewels. But Mummy said she was special. She was like the colour of tango.

"What's tango, Mummy?"

Oh, Mummy had sighed, tango was a dance. It was two people coming together and dancing as if they were not two but one person. They moved with such intimacy, such elegance, such such sensuality that other dancers sat down to watch and cry at how beautiful it all was.

"Have you ever seen tango, Mummy?"

Have I ever, she said. Once, two people had walked into the huge hall where Mummy made all her little kiddie buckets and they had a performance. Out in the corner, Mummy had watched, eyes aglow with wonder as a man and a woman walked onto the floor in the middle of the night and danced the tango. There was no music, just the two of them. But you could tell, Mummy said, you could tell they were dancing to their heartbeats.

"How, Mummy?"

Because they pulsed. They took a step for every single thump their hearts squeezed.

"What does tango look like?"

Tango, Mummy patiently explained, was like a wave. It was like a swirling wave in the middle of a bucket. Like how if you, little bucket, were to be filled up with water and someone put his hand and stirred it around and around, you know how the water would sirl? Its just like that. The tango is exactly like that. It swirls around and around. The man moves around the lady and then she moves around him and then they stare into each others eyes and she wraps one leg around his leg and they bend like windblown grass.

"But why red and black, Mummy?"

Because she wore red. And he wore black. And together, they melded, like the colour of a bloodstained moon against a stark, dark night.

"Oooh..." she was lost in wonder, the little bucket. She was captivated. But it was hard, she knew. To live up to something as wonderful as a tango would be hard. She wanted to be the best bucket there ever was. Like tango. Graceful and elegant and sensual.

But of course, being a bucket, no one ever saw past her beautiful red facade. No one ever saw how shiny she kept her black handle, thinking of the rich, black, sparkling shoes the man must have worn to dance with the beautiful satin red of the lady's dress. People only saw a bucket. Cleaner, perhaps, than other buckets but it was a bucket. They used it carry water and clothes and sometimes empty out a blocked drain which she really hated but she did it anyway.

People. They never saw her.

Only Sapheena. Sapheena saw her.

And Sapheena understood.

Everyday, Sapheenaa would fill her up with water and bubbles and she would dip a mop in her and swirl it around and around. And the little bucket would laugh and giggle and imagine the tango. And Sapheena would sing such wonderful songs in a language that the little bucket did not understand. The little red bucket sat there to listen and sing along with her watery voice whenever Sapheena rinsed out the mop. Sapheena was cool. Sapheena kept her clean. And polished.

As the years went by, Sapheena moved on. The red bucket grew up. Now, handle no longer polished, red plastic a little cracked, the red bucket accepted her fate. She was there for rubbish and dirty water and puke whenever the Master drank too much. No. She was not tango material.

Until one day.

She was being flung over the side of the balcony as usual in the early evening to empty out the dirty water when she caught sight of a crowd of people and two people dancing down below. The servant girl who was holding on to her handle stopped and placed the bucket on the railing. And they both watched. The red bucket, with her eyes aglow.

The man wore black. And the woman wore red. And together, they danced like swirling water in a bucket. And once again, the red bucket stood tall and proud, holding up the cracks, because she was not just a red bucket. She was one who held swirling water. She held tango.

And then one day, a new bucket turned up. Another one, just like the once little red bucket. She was red and black and resigned to the fact that she would be nothing more than a vessel for liquid.

But then the little red bucket told her, "You're more than that. You're like tango. The blood red of life and the blackness of the night."

And the new bucket stared, wide-eyed and amazed, as the red bucket told her the story of tango. How they were made special. How they were tango.

The end.

[Off the top of my head. Completely random thanks to the title given by the Sociologist]