There once was a man named Ugly. And he was, too. Not just physically, although he was a very ugly man, but inside him was ugly. He was mean and selfish and hated almost everything. What he didn’t hate no one knew because all he ever talked about was everything he didn’t like, which seemed like everything.

The village where he lived was a pretty little village. It was cute, and the people there were mostly nice and kind to each other. The community was thriving, and folks got along pretty well. They even got along with Ugly, and that was hard to do. The villagers would shake their heads as Ugly walked by and they would offer pitying looks. It was hard to believe how ugly Ugly really was.

Ugly was born that way. No one ever remembered a time when he wasn’t. As a tiny baby, his mother often remarked about how ugly he was, and his father could barely look at him. Both of his parents thought he might grow up to be a nice ugly but instead he was just ugly.

Ugly had a good job. He collected the trash from the village. Every day he would go to a different part of the town and collect the rubbish left by the side of the curb. He was usually done before most folks were out of bed. He knew he was ugly and didn’t want to see all those people looking at him so sad.

Ugly couldn’t understand what the problem was. He knew he was ugly and he knew he was ugly to his core. He liked being ugly but complained about it anyway.

Ugly lived in an ugly house at the edge of the cute little town. He had an ugly dog and an ugly pig that lived there with him. They were all ugly together. Sometimes at the end of the day, Ugly would look around and complain that his house, dog and pig were too ugly. But he was happy, sort of.

The townspeople decided that Ugly could not possibly be happy in that ugly house with those ugly animals, and so they devised a secret plan to try and make things out on his end of town not so ugly.

In the night they sneaked out to his ugly house and planted little flowers, and they swept the walk and, they tied a bow around that ugly pig’s neck. And when they were finished, the cute little townspeople sneaked back home.

In the morning when Ugly got up to go collect the town’s rubbish, he was surprised to see the flowers and his swept walk and the bow around the ugly pig’s neck. The bow had started sagging in the night and the pig had wallered around in the mud and the bow was little more than just a little bit ugly. And the flowers, having been planted in the dark and in the cold, were wilted and droopy looking.

Ugly shook his head in disbelief that his house was even uglier than before. He didn’t believe it was possible. But here it was.

When Ugly went to work that morning, all the townspeople heard about how much more ugly his house was than before. He made sure to complain about the bow on the ugly pig and the ugly little flowers that were all over his yard. The townspeople were somewhat offended. So they went out to Ugly’s house to see what he was talking about and sure enough, the house was even uglier with all the improvements.

The townspeople were surprised and dismayed that their efforts had failed. They looked very pitying on the ugly house, ugly dog and ugly, bow-endowed pig.

Ugly came upon the townsfolk as they stood around his yard. He pointed out how the improvements only magnified the ugly.

“Look, if you people are so nice, then why don’t you just let me be ugly the way I am. Just let my house and my dog and my pig all be ugly. We know we’re ugly and we aren’t trying to be anything else.” Ugly asked the townsfolk.

And they all agreed to leave Ugly alone and just let him be ugly.