This morning, everything went wrong.
I woke up late. My alarm didn’t go off. I spilled toothpaste on my shirt. The milk had gone sour. And just as I stepped outside, it began to rain—the annoying kind, not enough for an umbrella, but enough to soak your socks.
By the time I got to the bus stop, I was drenched, frustrated, and two stops away from a breakdown. I stood there muttering curses to no one in particular when an old man walked up next to me, holding a plastic bag over his head like a makeshift roof. He looked at me, nodded, and said, “Lovely day for a swim, isn’t it?”
I didn’t laugh. I wanted to stay mad. But something about how cheerfully he said it cracked my grumpy armor. I let out a reluctant smile.
Then he pointed at a puddle and said, “Bet there’s a whole universe in there. Tiny frogs, lost keys, maybe even Atlantis.” I laughed this time.
We talked for five minutes, waiting for the bus. I didn’t catch his name, and he didn’t ask mine. He told me he used to be a sailor, hated dry land, and thought umbrellas were a conspiracy by hat-makers.
The bus came, he waved, and walked off in the opposite direction. He hadn’t even been waiting for the bus.
I don’t know who he was, or if any of his stories were real. But something about that five-minute encounter reset my day. He reminded me that not everything has to make sense. That even crappy mornings can be salvaged with a well-timed joke and a bit of puddle-based imagination.
Sometimes, strangers show up exactly when you need them. And then disappear like they were never there.
Weird, isn’t it? But kind of perfect too.
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