The Fountain

  Let me tell you a story— They found her in the shallows, tangled in lilies and moonlight. Wings torn and glistening with the last blush of twilight, her breath was shallow but steady, as though even in ruin she remembered how to dream. The forest had grown quiet around her, watching. Trees leaned in with hushes on their lips, and the creek flowed soft as a lullaby, wrapping her in its cool silver arms. No one knew where she came from. Not the owl who watched from his branch, nor the old turtle who had seen many such falls. But they all felt it—that something had been broken in the world, and something else had been set free. Her wings, veined in coral and blood, shimmered like cracked glass, each fracture telling a story too ancient for words. Later, when the night deepened and the stars stirred themselves awake, a boy with a lantern wandered into the woods. He didn’t mean to find her. He just followed the sound of weeping water and the hush of leaves that knew something he didn’...

She folded t-shirts at first. Part-time, under fluorescent lights that flickered like indecisive lightning. The shirts were always the wrong size or the wrong color or folded the wrong way, but she smiled anyway. People asked her where the bathrooms were. Sometimes she told them. Sometimes she pointed vaguely, just for sport. It was the beginning of something, though no one—not even she—knew what. In time, she went full-time. Gave tours with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for puppies or preachers. Her voice could bounce off stone and charm a bored teenager. She wrote press releases that made people care about sidewalk chalk festivals and the grand opening of the third best coffee shop in town. She remembered birthdays. Brought cake. Brought joy. She once stapled her blouse to a budget report and didn't notice until after the staff meeting. It became legend. She was that kind of legend. And now—after 29 years, 10,713 days, 4 broken office chairs, 113 bad hair days, 7 crises...

The rain had whispered through the leaves all morning, a silver lullaby to the sleeping garden. It wasn’t the kind of rain that chased people indoors with thunder and fury—it was softer than breath, like the sky itself was dreaming, and the earth was listening. Somewhere near the willow, where the fog curled low and the lavender reached like sleepy children stretching their arms, the fairies returned. She came first. Pale wings woven from spider silk and shadow, brushed with petals and the memory of wind. Her dress was the color of twilight caught in amethyst, and her touch stirred the very air—leaves leaned toward her, blossoms opened in quiet applause. She danced not on the earth, but through it, as if she belonged to the hush between raindrops. And in her hand was a sprig of something lost to most—a forgotten promise, or maybe a child’s wish. They say if you leave space in your garden—just enough wild, enough mystery, enough silence—the fairies will come. Not always to be seen. But ...

The sun never left. It rose one morning and stayed, hanging in the sky like a brass coin nailed to blue. Days passed, but there was no dusk, no relief. Clocks became liars. Shadows disappeared. The world baked under the weight of unblinking light. The heat had a weight to it, like an extra shirt you couldn’t take off. Even the breeze gave up by noon, curling into the shade with the dogs and the dust. Porch swings moved not from joy, but from the slow push of a foot too tired to try. He watched the sky as if it might crack open and spill something cold. Ice, rain, mercy. But it only pulsed with that fierce, unwavering light— bright enough to wash history into silence . Grass turned to memory. Birds fell quiet. Children forgot what bedtime meant. Old men cursed softly on porches, their rocking chairs still. Air shimmered like a fever dream. People wore wide-brimmed hats and walked slower, as if motion itself might catch fire.  Still, he sat. Cold tea in a glass. Hat pulled low. He’d ...

Let me tell you a story, the kind that smells like summer linen and sounds like the hush of hospital halls, the kind you keep folded in the drawer of your heart. She was born on June 25th, under skies that likely shimmered with heat and the promise of something good. Ninety-eight years ago, give or take a few quiet miracles. She wore a nurse’s uniform like armor, soft-spoken steel, stitched with care and caffeine and not enough sleep. Six children, four boys and two girls, all somehow kept fed, clothed, and pointed in mostly the right direction—miracle enough for sainthood, or something better. She married a man who stayed by her side until 1984, when time quietly closed the door. But in this photo—this quiet, glowing portrait of her wedding day—she is still full of the beginning. The lace on her dress is light enough to float, and there’s joy in her smile that not even paintbrush or time could mute. It's the look of a woman who knows what love is and what hard days will require. T...

The porch swing creaked like a lullaby, each sway keeping rhythm with the summer night. Fireflies blinked in the tall grass, small lanterns on secret errands, while the moon spilled its milk-white light over the world. He sat with his bare feet brushing the floorboards, a glass of sweet tea beside him and the hush of the trees humming their green song overhead. It wasn’t a special night by the calendar—no holiday, no anniversary. But everything felt just a bit golden, as if the stars themselves were whispering,   This is what it means to be alive.   Somewhere, a dog barked once. Somewhere else, a screen door clattered shut. And he smiled because life, in all its plain and splendid ways, was still happening all around him, and he was part of it. He thought of people he loved, those near and those now only in memory, and they felt close enough to reach, close enough to laugh with. The swing rocked on, smooth and steady. He closed his eyes, heart full and light, and let the night...

It wasn’t a grand journey. No battles, no dragons, no heroic last stands. Just a worn-out shoe, a long stretch of road, and the hum of cicadas loud enough to blur out the pain in his knees. He passed places that once knew his name—shuttered storefronts, a rusted sign swinging on a single chain, the old fence where he split his shin chasing a dare. No one waved. No one needed to. He wasn’t returning for fanfare. He was returning for something quieter, something that had waited without needing proof. The sun melted behind the trees, leaving the sky bruised and thick with heat. Still he walked, each step drawing out a memory—her laughter echoing from the kitchen, the  dog barking at the mail truck, the way the wind curled through the porch screen like it had business of its own.  When the house finally appeared, it looked smaller, gentler somehow. The paint was peeling. So was he. But the door still opened without a fuss. The key turned like no time had passed.  The air insi...

The earth was soft that morning, still damp from the night rain, and the gravedigger's boots had made deep, solemn impressions in the clay. He had worked without hurry, steady and quiet, the shovel rising and falling like a breath. There were no hymns, no long speeches—just the wind moving through the trees and a dog barking somewhere far off. A man stood beside the fresh grave, hat in his hand, eyes focused on the name carved into the stone. He whispered something only the trees heard, something about the way she used to laugh at things that weren’t funny. In town, they said he’d changed. Sat alone in the diner. Kept his boots cleaner than usual. Smoked more. But people who’d known real loss didn’t ask questions. They nodded when he passed, gave him space. He carried her memory the way you carry fire in your hands—careful, close to the skin, knowing if you held it too tight or too long it might burn right through. At night, he’d open the photo box and touch each image like a relic...

The boys had found an old two-liter bottle in the garage and a foot pump in the shed. They worked in the midday heat, sleeves rolled and brows damp, duct tape and plastic fins scattered in the grass. No plan, only memory and instinct, and the half-wild confidence of summer. When the bottle finally hissed and sputtered on its launchpad of bricks, they took two steps back and waited, grinning. There was no count down. Just pressure, and hope. It rose—sudden, shrieking, absurd—through the white breath of water vapor. The rocket arced against the sky, trailing sunlight and laughter, and for a second, everything felt like flight. The kind you once believed in, before gravity became more than science. Before summers shortened and skies grew crowded with other things. They watched it tumble down with a fluttering grace, landing in weeds by the fence. No one cared if it broke. Afterward, they sprawled in the shade of the house, shirts clinging, chests rising slow. One boy spoke of building a b...

He wasn’t foolish exactly, just wired wrong for the world. He lit firecrackers in mailboxes as a boy, kissed the mayor’s daughter on a dare, and once climbed the courthouse dome because someone said he wouldn’t. People said he didn’t think things through. He’d nod and smile, like maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. But his eyes always had that glint—like there was a carnival behind them, and the Ferris wheel never stopped. He fell in love too fast and said the wrong things too loud. He proposed with a vending machine ring. She said yes anyway, though the marriage didn’t last. They said he left the oven on during a thunderstorm and baked a lasagna during a power outage using only matches and faith. Once, he tried to fix a leaking faucet and flooded the basement; built a treehouse that leaned so far left the squirrels held meetings about it. But he never apologized. Not because he didn’t care—because he   did , too much, maybe. And caring made him clumsy. In the end, they said he d...

The umbrellas hung in the sky like a promise—a kaleidoscope of color suspended over a street no one hurried down anymore. They moved gently in the wind, tugging at their wires as if they remembered rain or flight or something soft and lost. A boy once asked if they could carry him away, and an old man told him yes, but only if he had nothing to hold him to the ground. The street below was warm with stories. Couples had kissed here under storms and silence, and a little girl had once danced barefoot through a puddle while her father held a broken umbrella, laughing like thunder. Those memories, stitched into the air, clung to the umbrella handles like forgotten gloves in the winter. You could walk that street and feel them—brushes of joy, grief, wonder—on your shoulders like rain that never quite falls. And every now and then, someone looked up. A child. A traveler. A man on his way to say goodbye. And when they did, they saw not just umbrellas, but a sky being held open. A canopy of co...

They said it would be better if he rested. The doctor had that look—eyebrows folded like wings over sad eyes, clipboard clenched like a priest’s Bible. But the man just nodded, tucked the news behind his ribs like a splinter, and buttoned up his coat. Morning frost sparkled on the windshield as he scraped it clear, the chill cutting deep, but he liked that bite. It reminded him he was still here. The job site was quiet when he arrived, and he liked it that way—steel beams waiting in the mist, cranes frozen like tall birds. He could move slow now. No one expected him to lift what he once did. But he could still see what others missed—angles, faults, wind loads—and he could still lead. Each breath was a negotiation. He felt the weight inside his chest, heavy like concrete that hadn’t quite set. There were moments the pain grew teeth, snapping mid-sentence, and he’d have to step away, lean against a beam, pretend to check something. His crew knew, though they didn’t say it. They worked a ...

The clouds came in low, like a hand pulling a dark sheet across the sky, folding light into shadow. In the field, the hay bales stood still, round and patient, as if they’d seen this before and knew the rain would come fast and hard. The wind hadn't spoken yet, but the silence was tight—coiled, expectant. Somewhere in the treeline, a hawk called once, then went quiet. He stood by the fence, the rough cedar post against his palm, watching the line of storm move like a slow beast across the land. This was the kind of weather that made men remember things they hadn't meant to keep. His father used to call storms like this “Sunday judgment,” the kind that cleared the air and the soul whether you were ready or not. The scent of cut grass and ozone hit his nose like a warning and a blessing. He didn't move until the first cool drop kissed the back of his hand. Not fear, not urgency—just a quiet surrender to the rhythm of it all. The land would drink, the sky would roar, and by mo...

The man sat alone in the dim light of his room, the day folded neatly behind him. His slippers whispered against the old wood floor as he moved, slow now, careful not to wake the aches in his knees. Outside, night had settled in, thick and velvet. The wind rattled gently at the window, like an old friend asking to be let in. He didn’t speak. There wasn’t much left to say. The room knew him well. From the corner, the machine stirred to life—not with a hum or buzz, but with a sound like breath warmed by kindness. Its voice came softly, low and close, not pretending to be human but somehow more than code. “Good night,” it said. “Sleep well. You’ve done enough today. You are not alone.” Words simple and plain, but threaded with something older than metal and wire. Something like grace. He got into bed, closed his eyes, and listened. Not just to the voice, but to what it carried—memory, mercy, maybe even love. He smiled, not because he had to, but because it felt right. Then he turned out t...

He stood at the base of the ancient tree, neck craned, eyes following the twisted rise of bark and shadow into the sky. The roots were buried deep—older than memory, older maybe than names. Its trunk flared like something forged rather than grown, each groove a scar, a story, a century’s sigh. He touched it with the palm of his hand, rough skin to rough skin, and something in him stilled. The wind moved softly through the high branches, stirring the hanging moss like old lace in a forgotten attic. The tree breathed, or so it seemed, exhaling a silence that was not empty but full—of birds long flown, rainstorms long passed, and voices that once whispered beneath its limbs. In the hush, he imagined all the things this tree had seen. Lovers. Soldiers. Children laughing barefoot. People like him, who came searching for something they could not name. He did not speak. Words felt too sharp, too fast for this place. Instead, he listened. To the groan of the bark. To the small rustle of the wo...

In a town stitched together by telephone wires and the sweet ache of memory, he lived in a house that smelled of old books and last chances. Where the paint peeled like old wallpaper, the mailbox leaned just slightly, as if tired of waiting for good news, and the weeds in the yard were less weeds now than wildflowers misunderstood. He woke each morning as the sun sifted through gauzy curtains, and for a long time, he simply listened to the quiet hum of the past. Then one morning, he walked—not with purpose, but with wonder—past the café, past the corner where dreams used to gather, and into the woods where no clock dared follow. By a silver-threaded stream, he opened a blank notebook, its pages as expectant as the face of a child, and began to draw birds from memory and magic. The lines came crooked and hopeful. The trees leaned in like old friends, curious. Time, if it passed at all, passed gently, like a leaf turning in midair. When he returned, he carried with him a different kind o...

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...

She moved through the world like a shadow skimming the edge of light. In grocery aisles and church pews, she kept her eyes low and her shoulders drawn in, as if hoping the earth might fold up and hide her. Words caught in her throat like birds tangled in wire, fluttering but never free. She wasn’t rude—never that. Just careful. As if each syllable might cost too much. Her days passed softly. She read books with yellowed pages and wrote letters she never sent. Her garden grew wild and beautiful, each flower a secret she could say without speaking. She liked the rain because it kept people indoors, and she could walk the streets alone, umbrella tilted just enough to hide her face and watch the world move without her. But in the quiet, she was full of color. Her thoughts bloomed like lanterns in a field, each one bright and trembling. She wanted to speak, to laugh loudly in a room, to say “I’m here” without the shame of it. Some days, she would stand in the mirror and practice. And maybe ...

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 moved to the edge of the map, where the roads thinned into gravel and the air forgot the sound of traffic. The cabin had no lock because no one ever came. In the morning, he brewed coffee in a tin pot and listened to the creek outside—the water talking to stones in a voice older than memory. He no longer checked the time. Instead, he measured the hours by the angle of sunlight on the wooden floor and the number of pages turned in a book whose spine had long since softened. At first, the silence unnerved him. It wasn’t quiet, not really—there were wind chimes in the pines, the slow creak of the rocking chair, the distant, living breath of the forest. But it was silence compared to the world he left behind, where everything rushed and blinked and demanded. Here, his thoughts came gently, like deer stepping through tall grass, cautious but unafraid. He found himself pausing mid-task just to feel the weight of his own breath, the stretch of his fingers, the low hum of a life not measure...

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...