The Fountain

An old man walked each morning with a tired dog whose tail wagged like a slow metronome.  Not a remarkable dog—except to him. She was graying at the ears, stiff in the hips, but her eyes still held the kind of trust that could break your heart. Every morning, they walked the same loop through the neighborhood. Past the magnolia with its low-slung limbs. Past the red mailbox shaped like a fish. Past the bench that no one ever sat on anymore.  The streets were quiet, the sun still undecided. Dew clung to grass and mailbox alike. They stopped beneath a crepe myrtle, t he blossoms were falling in pink drifts, soft as ash.    He bent to tie his shoe but lingered, his fingers brushing the ground, remembering.  The man looked down at his companion, who looked at him as if to say,   yes, I remember too. The dog watched him with patient eyes, the kind that forgave everything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a marble. Just one. Sky-blue, with a swirl o...

It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the wind sharp as a truth you’d rather not face. The sky was the color of old tin, and the parking lot outside the grocery store stretched empty, save for one shape hunched against the wind. A dog—ragged, chestnut-colored, tail curled like a question mark. He didn’t beg, didn’t whine. Just sat there like he was waiting for someone to remember him. Or maybe forgive him. The man got out of the car with half a bag of beef jerky and a whispered, “Hey there, buddy.” The dog looked up, and that was it. The story had started. The man named him George—not because it meant anything at the time, but because it sounded solid, dependable, like an old friend who never asks too much. The dog didn’t trust the world at first, circling the house like it might vanish when he blinked. But over time he settled in—by the fire, under the table, near the man's boots. Thanksgiving came and went, but the real thanks was there in his eyes, every single morning.  Years...

He woke to the smell of dust motes dancing in sunbeams, a golden, forgotten incense that had perfumed every birthday morning since memory began. The air was a tapestry woven from the scent of old paper and the distant, murmuring sigh of wind through ancient trees. Outside, the world hummed with an invisible, electric current, a quiet symphony of cicadas in the noon-warm grass and the faint, sweet decay of summer.  Another year had passed, not loudly, but like a bird moving through high branches—seen only if you were looking. He didn’t count years much anymore. They gathered on their own, stacking like stones in the garden wall.  It wasn't a number so much as a whisper on the wind, a faint echo from a time when the world was a carousel of blazing, untamed colors, now softened, like a watercolor left too long in the sun. His fingers traced the cool glass of the window seeing not merely the garden beyond, but all the springs and autumns that had blossomed and withered there. Each...

It started with a sock. One. Singular. Navy blue with a pale yellow stripe near the top. It was last seen entering the dryer in a perfectly matched pair, tumbling joyfully through the heat with its lifelong partner. And then — poof — gone. Evaporated. Absconded. Disappeared into the spinning mystery of domestic life. He checked the drum. Then under the machine. Then under the cat, who blinked once and refused to comment. He accused the dog. He interrogated the lint trap. “You can tell me,” he whispered, flashlight in hand, “where did he go?” The room said nothing, just hummed that suspicious appliance hum, like a secret being kept by cheap metal and old socks everywhere. Days passed. The partner sock stood in quiet mourning on the dresser, folded neatly, dignified in its solitude. But then—he found it. Behind the bookcase in the guest room, curled like a hibernating mouse. How? Why? It would never say. Just sat there, smug and silent, daring him to question the laws of laundry. He reun...

The house had no door, only the suggestion of one—shadowed wood and a dark mouth that opened to memory and dust. The tin roof, rusted like dried blood, caught the morning sun and threw it back in brittle shards. The field behind it stretched quiet and pale, harvested and bare, as if it too had given everything it had to give. He used to come here with his grandfather, when the place still smelled of woodsmoke and sorghum syrup. The porch had held up their boots, the floor creaked beneath Sunday storytelling, and the walls knew the names of every cousin born within arm’s reach of the stove. That was long ago. The trees now stood leafless and thin, like bones reaching for a sky that no longer listened. Still, the house endured. Not from strength, but from stubbornness—refusing to fall, refusing to forget. He stood in its shadow, not looking in, not daring to step close, as if the house might speak and say his name. Some places, he thought, don’t die. They just wait.

They found Mr. King’s body not far from the corner of 8th and Sycamore, face down in the street, the rain still falling like the soft breath of God. No one saw the car. No one claimed the blame. The children at St. Patrick’s learned the news in murmurs—passed like secrets behind hands folded in prayer. The janitor was gone. Just like that. The man who mopped the halls with a limp and smiled with his eyes more than his mouth. The man who fixed the loose desk legs with wire and tape and wiped tears from scraped knees without asking names. He had no family, they said. The office clerk searched and found no next of kin. But Sister Agnes insisted there be a funeral. “The man cleaned our sanctuary for twenty years,” she said, voice sharp as the bell that called the faithful to Mass. So on a cold rain-soaked morning of that March, two altar boys in damp cassocks stood beside the pine box, their shoes wet through and their candles shivering. Father Thomas read the rites in Latin as if the sky ...

The checkered blanket was small, the plates mismatched, and the cake slightly tilted, but none of that mattered. Squirrel poured tea with a careful paw while Rabbit and his cousin, Hare, leaned close, their ears brushing like old friends trading secrets. Nearby, butterflies danced slow circles in the sun, and a sparrow perched as if waiting for its own cup. It was a picnic without pomp, just the soft hush of joy. They didn’t speak much, and they didn’t need to. The chocolate cake had been made with care, the kind passed down from woodland kitchens long forgotten. Hare nibbled delicately while Rabbit clutched his coat a little tighter, warmed more by company than tea. Squirrel, ever precise, wiped a crumb from the corner of his mouth and smiled at nothing in particular. The afternoon stretched long, like a nap after rain. And though time nudged forward—quiet as the bluebird near their feet—they sat a little longer, held in that gentle pause. Because sometimes, the best moments come dres...

He woke each morning without a thought for what might come, his mind tied tightly to the now, like a sailor lashed to the mast in a storm. The sun slipped through the cracks in his blinds, turning dust motes into tiny, golden planets spinning in the still air. He dressed with the unhurried ease of a man with no tomorrows to fear or plan for, his feet moving over the worn floorboards, their creak as familiar as his own breath. Outside, the street hummed with the rattle of passing cars, the clatter of a shopkeeper rolling up his steel shutters, the bark of a dog in pursuit of something only it could see. He walked among it all, each step a note in the song of a morning that was his alone. At the corner café, he sat in the same chair each day, its cracked vinyl seat molded to his shape, the table's wobbly leg a familiar quirk. He felt the heat of the cup in his hand, the bitter rush of coffee on his tongue, the sharp scent of baked bread drifting from the kitchen. The world swirled ar...

He parked just past the curve of the path where the lanterns began, their soft glow lining the way like hushes laid gently on the earth. The forest was still, the kind of stillness that wraps around grief without speaking its name. Ahead, the red Japanese maple shimmered with light, its branches lit from within, a quiet blaze against the deepening dusk. He stood for a moment, keys loose in his hand, watching as the wind stirred the leaves like breath. The bench beneath the tree was empty, waiting. He moved toward it slowly, the sound of his steps muffled by pine needles and time. In his coat pocket, the small bouquet of fresh flowers bumped gently with each step, wrapped in paper she would’ve chosen—something soft, something simple. He paused just off the path, tucked beside slender dogwoods, their white blossoms long since gone. He knelt, brushing back the fallen needles, and set the flowers down. Then he sat, not speaking yet, just listening to the hush, the lights in the tree above ...

It was the last night of May, and the fields breathed a warm, sweet sigh beneath the stars. The tall grass whispered against itself, and the wildflowers—painted in yellow, orange, and blue—leaned into the breeze like they knew a secret. A girl sat barefoot in the clearing, knees pulled to her chest, her wings soft as dandelion threads catching the moonlight. She didn’t speak. Fairies rarely did when magic was near. All around her, the air began to shimmer, not with heat but with something older. Fireflies blinked in quiet rhythm, like they’d rehearsed this dance a thousand times. The wind changed, just enough to carry the smell of honeysuckle and the first breath of June. And though no clock struck, the moment arrived—subtle, sure—as if the world had taken a breath and exhaled into a new name. She rose without a sound, trailing light behind her, and touched the petals of a daisy now fully bloomed. Behind her, the woods stirred with creatures waking from dreams and the hush of something...