The Fountain in the Square

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Everyone

Speaker 1 in which nothing much happens.

Speaker 1 You feel good

Speaker 1 and then you fall asleep.

Speaker 1 I'm Catherine Nikolai.

Speaker 1 I write and read

Speaker 1 all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens.

Speaker 1 Audio Engineering is by Bob Wittersheim.

Speaker 1 We give to a different charity each week. And this week we are giving to FIRST Book, addressing the needs of the whole child, supporting their education, basic needs, and wellness,

Speaker 1 all of which are essential to educational equity. You can learn more about them in our show notes.

Speaker 1 For more, nothing much, and zero ads, become a premium subscriber it's just a dime a day and there is so much bonus content and extra long episodes waiting for you click the link in our show notes or head straight over to nothingmuch happens dot com

Speaker 1 now

Speaker 1 here is how this works

Speaker 1 we need to give your mind

Speaker 1 something to focus on

Speaker 1 a place to rest

Speaker 1 and that's what bedtime stories do.

Speaker 1 Just by listening,

Speaker 1 you will actually shift brain activity

Speaker 1 in a way that allows sleep to happen and build a more reliable response over time.

Speaker 1 So just follow along with my voice. And before you know it,

Speaker 1 You'll be waking up tomorrow,

Speaker 1 feeling refreshed and ready for a good day.

Speaker 1 I'll tell the story twice,

Speaker 1 and I'll go a little slower the second time through.

Speaker 1 If you wake later in the night, just turn on an episode, catch your brain before it revs up,

Speaker 1 and you'll drop right back off.

Speaker 1 Our story tonight

Speaker 1 is called The Fountain in the Square.

Speaker 1 And it's a story about a place to make a wish as the season tips to summer. It's also about local lore and shared customs, cool running water,

Speaker 1 light falling through leaves, marbles and theater games,

Speaker 1 and remembering something by adding to the world.

Speaker 1 It is dedicated to the memory of my friend, Sarah Kramer.

Speaker 1 It's time.

Speaker 1 Lights out, campers.

Speaker 1 Get settled in your sheets. This is a moment to prioritize your own comfort.

Speaker 1 And you might not have a lot of experience with that.

Speaker 1 But we're changing that right now.

Speaker 1 So get the right pillow in the right spot.

Speaker 1 Pull your comforter up over your shoulder

Speaker 1 and feel your whole body relax.

Speaker 1 Take a deep breath in through your nose

Speaker 1 and sigh from your mouth

Speaker 1 again. Breathe in

Speaker 1 and out

Speaker 1 Good

Speaker 1 The Fountain in the Square

Speaker 1 Where Main Street crosses Elm,

Speaker 1 there is a patch of green grass,

Speaker 1 a circle of benches and planters,

Speaker 1 and an old patenated fountain.

Speaker 1 The grass was coming in nicely by now,

Speaker 1 thick and soft,

Speaker 1 and dotted here and there with clover flowers.

Speaker 1 Brick pavers, cracked a bit and pushed up by roots in places,

Speaker 1 make a path around the benches,

Speaker 1 and the planters are full of petunias

Speaker 1 that,

Speaker 1 in a couple of months, will be laggy and overgrown,

Speaker 1 but right now are fresh and bright and beautiful.

Speaker 1 The fountain sits at the center of it all,

Speaker 1 a tall, curved piece of bronze or copper,

Speaker 1 shaped like a rounded door,

Speaker 1 with a single spout pouring into a deep basin

Speaker 1 that rises from the ground up past my knees.

Speaker 1 The water itself

Speaker 1 came straight from our city source,

Speaker 1 so it was clean and safe to drink,

Speaker 1 and I often saw people stopping to fill water bottles from it.

Speaker 1 The metal had turned over the years

Speaker 1 to a soft minty green,

Speaker 1 textured with layers of patina,

Speaker 1 and along the basin

Speaker 1 were carved birds and fish.

Speaker 1 A wing of one of the birds

Speaker 1 was a local good luck charm

Speaker 1 and had been rubbed to a glossy shine by the hands of many,

Speaker 1 many

Speaker 1 people over the decades.

Speaker 1 It was a tradition for students to rub the wing before their spring exams.

Speaker 1 So at this time of year it stood out brightly

Speaker 1 among the rest of the metal.

Speaker 1 While many fountains are full of coins

Speaker 1 cast in as a wish is made.

Speaker 1 Ours had somehow developed a different custom.

Speaker 1 We,

Speaker 1 and no one knew when it had started or why,

Speaker 1 dropped marbles into our fountain.

Speaker 1 They still marked wishes and hopes,

Speaker 1 were still dropped in with closed eyes,

Speaker 1 like the moment before you blow out birthday candles.

Speaker 1 But our little village had somehow decided,

Speaker 1 without ever talking about it,

Speaker 1 that the appropriate carrier for those dreams were small glass spheres

Speaker 1 and not coins.

Speaker 1 In fact, a few of the shops on the square sold little pouches of them, propped in piles by the register, just for this,

Speaker 1 and meant the bottom of the fountain was full of them.

Speaker 1 And when you looked down into it,

Speaker 1 you saw a kaleidoscope of colors:

Speaker 1 blue and green clearies,

Speaker 1 cats-eyes,

Speaker 1 agates,

Speaker 1 swirls, and Benningtons,

Speaker 1 cane cuts and gooseberries,

Speaker 1 and the one-off end-of-day marbles.

Speaker 1 I suspected kids who tossed coins instead

Speaker 1 didn't know all those names and types.

Speaker 1 It was

Speaker 1 like a bit of local dialect.

Speaker 1 When you realize you,

Speaker 1 your family, your neighborhood use different words for something than everyone else. A small sign of belonging

Speaker 1 with no discernible beginning,

Speaker 1 but meaningful nonetheless.

Speaker 1 I didn't have a marble in my pocket today,

Speaker 1 but I hadn't come to make a wish.

Speaker 1 There was a small plaque on the side of the fountain,

Speaker 1 and I'd spotted it last time I was here.

Speaker 1 I wasn't exactly sure what it meant.

Speaker 1 There was no date, but it felt like a memorial.

Speaker 1 And since I'd seen it, I'd been thinking of it.

Speaker 1 It just said

Speaker 1 for SK

Speaker 1 Yes and

Speaker 1 with three dots,

Speaker 1 which might have been an ellipsis

Speaker 1 or meant something else.

Speaker 1 I'd brought with me a small polishing cloth and some gentle dish soap.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to take any of the patina off the plaque,

Speaker 1 but did want to clear away the layer of dust and dirt that had settled on it.

Speaker 1 I wet my cloth at the spout.

Speaker 1 The water felt cool and refreshing on my hands.

Speaker 1 We were just on the edge of hot weather. It was warm today,

Speaker 1 but in the shade, if the wind blew, it might still chill you just a bit.

Speaker 1 I thought of how good it would be on a truly hot summer day

Speaker 1 to let this water run over my wrists.

Speaker 1 I squeezed a bit of soap onto my cloth

Speaker 1 and worked it into a lather,

Speaker 1 then started to clean the plaque.

Speaker 1 It took a few minutes of scrubbing.

Speaker 1 There were some stubborn spots where pollen and rainwater had mixed to stain the surface

Speaker 1 but I was patient

Speaker 1 I rinsed the cloth every now and then

Speaker 1 started again

Speaker 1 with a bit more soap

Speaker 1 and soon it was shining like new

Speaker 1 I rinsed all of the soap out of my cloth and wrung it out tightly

Speaker 1 until it was barely damp,

Speaker 1 wiped the plaque one more time

Speaker 1 to clear away the last film of moisture,

Speaker 1 and stepped back

Speaker 1 to admire it.

Speaker 1 I thought about the phrase, yes and

Speaker 1 recognizing it from my high school theater days

Speaker 1 when our troop had warmed up by playing zip zap zap in the corridor by the band room

Speaker 1 and tried to tell a story as a group one word at a time.

Speaker 1 We'd learned the principle of yes and

Speaker 1 as a way to support your scene partners

Speaker 1 and move the story forward.

Speaker 1 If you stepped into a scene

Speaker 1 and were told, for example,

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 this snowstorm that was trapping us all in the grocery store

Speaker 1 was actually the shedding fur of a dog the size of a mountain.

Speaker 1 You didn't say,

Speaker 1 that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 Dogs don't get that big.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 that derailed the whole experience. It stopped the story in its tracks.

Speaker 1 Instead, you said, yes,

Speaker 1 and we have just ten minutes to find his squeaky toy somewhere in the canned goods.

Speaker 1 You took what you were given

Speaker 1 and helped push it a little further.

Speaker 1 Was that what SK did?

Speaker 1 Took what the moment gave them

Speaker 1 and leveled up?

Speaker 1 I had a feeling it was.

Speaker 1 I sat on one of the benches

Speaker 1 and laid my polishing cloth out on the seat beside me to let it dry completely in the sunshine.

Speaker 1 The sound of the fountain was steady and soothing,

Speaker 1 ringing out like a set of wind chimes moving in the breeze.

Speaker 1 I tipped my head back

Speaker 1 and let my eyes close.

Speaker 1 I've always been fascinated by the way sunlight looked through my eyelids.

Speaker 1 Even as a child, I would stop mid-play in the yard

Speaker 1 to close my eyes and lift my face

Speaker 1 and watch the light flash and change.

Speaker 1 A breeze must have been blowing up high in the trees.

Speaker 1 Every now and then a shadow

Speaker 1 flickered across my face.

Speaker 1 I took slow deep breaths,

Speaker 1 feeling

Speaker 1 so calm and content

Speaker 1 here by the fountain.

Speaker 1 A sound brought me back

Speaker 1 and I tipped my chin down and blinked my eyes open.

Speaker 1 A child, maybe five or six,

Speaker 1 stood at the edge of the fountain

Speaker 1 and behind him a few feet waited an older woman, smiling down at him.

Speaker 1 She spotted me on the bench and gave me a quick wink.

Speaker 1 The little boy held a marble in his hand,

Speaker 1 hovering it above the basin in the fountain.

Speaker 1 I couldn't help the smile that spread over my face,

Speaker 1 witnessing this rite of passage that I too

Speaker 1 had first partaken in at about his age.

Speaker 1 His lips were moving and his eyes were closed, and when he froze for a moment, she encouraged him to

Speaker 1 go on, drop it in,

Speaker 1 and his fingers opened.

Speaker 1 There was a plop,

Speaker 1 and he leaned over the edge to watch it fall

Speaker 1 to gather with the other marbles in the basin's bottom.

Speaker 1 She reached out her hand to him,

Speaker 1 and he reached up to it, and off they went.

Speaker 1 I tipped my face back to the sun,

Speaker 1 wondering what he had wished,

Speaker 1 and whispered to myself,

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 the fountain in the square,

Speaker 1 where Main Street crosses Elm,

Speaker 1 there is a patch of green grass,

Speaker 1 a circle of benches

Speaker 1 and planters,

Speaker 1 and an old patinated fountain.

Speaker 1 The grass was coming in nicely by now,

Speaker 1 thick and soft,

Speaker 1 and dotted here and there with clover flowers.

Speaker 1 Brick pavers

Speaker 1 cracked a bit

Speaker 1 and pushed up by roots in places

Speaker 1 make a path around the benches

Speaker 1 and the planters are full of petunias

Speaker 1 that in a couple of months

Speaker 1 will be laggy and overgrown

Speaker 1 but right now are fresh and bright

Speaker 1 and beautiful.

Speaker 1 The fountain sits at its center,

Speaker 1 a tall, curved piece of bronze or copper,

Speaker 1 shaped like a rounded door,

Speaker 1 with a single spout,

Speaker 1 pouring into a deep basin

Speaker 1 that rises from the ground

Speaker 1 up past my knees.

Speaker 1 The water itself came straight from our city source

Speaker 1 and was clean

Speaker 1 and safe to drink,

Speaker 1 and I often saw people stopping to fill water bottles from it.

Speaker 1 The metal had turned over the years

Speaker 1 to a soft, minty green,

Speaker 1 textured with layers of patina,

Speaker 1 and along the basin

Speaker 1 were carved birds and fish.

Speaker 1 A wing of one of the birds

Speaker 1 was a local good luck charm,

Speaker 1 and had been rubbed to a glossy shine

Speaker 1 by the hands of many,

Speaker 1 many people over decades.

Speaker 1 It was a tradition for students to rub the wing

Speaker 1 before their spring exams.

Speaker 1 So at this time of year

Speaker 1 it stood out brightly

Speaker 1 among the rest of the aged metal.

Speaker 1 While many fountains are full of coins,

Speaker 1 cast in as a wish is made,

Speaker 1 ours had somehow developed a different custom.

Speaker 1 We

Speaker 1 and no one knew when it had started or why

Speaker 1 dropped marbles into our fountain.

Speaker 1 They still marked wishes and hopes,

Speaker 1 were still dropped in with closed eyes,

Speaker 1 like the moment before you blow out birthday candles.

Speaker 1 But our little village had somehow decided

Speaker 1 without ever talking about it

Speaker 1 that the appropriate carrier for those dreams

Speaker 1 were small glass spheres and not coins.

Speaker 1 In fact, a few of the shops on the square sold little pouches of them propped in piles by the registers

Speaker 1 just for this.

Speaker 1 It meant the bottom of the fountain was full of them.

Speaker 1 And when you looked down into it,

Speaker 1 you saw a kaleidoscope of colors,

Speaker 1 blue and green clearies,

Speaker 1 cat's eyes,

Speaker 1 agates,

Speaker 1 swirls,

Speaker 1 and Benningtons,

Speaker 1 cane cuts and gooseberries,

Speaker 1 and the one-off end-of-day marbles.

Speaker 1 I suspected kids who tossed coins instead

Speaker 1 didn't know all those names and types.

Speaker 1 It was like a bit of of local dialect

Speaker 1 When you realize your family, your neighborhood, you

Speaker 1 use a different word for something

Speaker 1 than everyone else.

Speaker 1 A small sign of belonging,

Speaker 1 with no discernible beginning,

Speaker 1 but meaningful nonetheless.

Speaker 1 I didn't have a marble in my pocket today

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I hadn't come to make a wish

Speaker 1 there was a small plaque on the side of the fountain

Speaker 1 that I'd spotted last time I was here.

Speaker 1 I wasn't exactly sure

Speaker 1 what it meant.

Speaker 1 There was no date,

Speaker 1 but it felt like a memorial.

Speaker 1 And since I'd seen it,

Speaker 1 I'd been thinking of it.

Speaker 1 It just said

Speaker 1 for SK

Speaker 1 Yes, and

Speaker 1 with three dots,

Speaker 1 which might have been an ellipsis

Speaker 1 or meant something else.

Speaker 1 I'd brought with me a small polishing cloth

Speaker 1 and some gentle dish soap.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to take any of the patina off the plaque,

Speaker 1 But did want to clear away the layer of dust and dirt

Speaker 1 that had settled on it.

Speaker 1 I wet my cloth at the spout.

Speaker 1 The water felt cool and refreshing on my hands.

Speaker 1 We were just on the edge of hot weather.

Speaker 1 It was warm today,

Speaker 1 but in the shade,

Speaker 1 if the wind blew,

Speaker 1 it might still chill you just a bit.

Speaker 1 I thought of how good it would be

Speaker 1 on a truly hot summer day

Speaker 1 to let this water

Speaker 1 run

Speaker 1 over my wrists.

Speaker 1 I squeezed a bit of soap onto my cloth

Speaker 1 and worked it into a lather,

Speaker 1 then started to clean the plaque.

Speaker 1 I took a few minutes of scrubbing.

Speaker 1 There were some stubborn spots where pollen

Speaker 1 and rain water

Speaker 1 had mixed to stain the surface.

Speaker 1 But I was patient.

Speaker 1 I rinsed the cloth

Speaker 1 every now and then,

Speaker 1 started again

Speaker 1 with a bit more soap,

Speaker 1 and soon it was shining like new.

Speaker 1 I rinsed all of the soap out of my cloth

Speaker 1 and wrung it out tightly

Speaker 1 until it was barely damp,

Speaker 1 wiped the plaque

Speaker 1 one more time

Speaker 1 to clear away the last film of moisture

Speaker 1 and stepped back

Speaker 1 to admire it.

Speaker 1 I thought about the phrase

Speaker 1 yes and

Speaker 1 recognizing it from my high school theater days

Speaker 1 when we'd warmed up

Speaker 1 by playing zip, zap, zop

Speaker 1 in the corridor by the band room,

Speaker 1 and then tried to tell a story as a group

Speaker 1 one word at a time.

Speaker 1 We'd learned the principle

Speaker 1 of yes and

Speaker 1 as a way to support your scene partners

Speaker 1 and move the story forward.

Speaker 1 If you stepped into a scene

Speaker 1 and were told,

Speaker 1 for example,

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 this snowstorm

Speaker 1 that was trapping us all

Speaker 1 in the grocery store

Speaker 1 was actually the shedding fur

Speaker 1 of a dog the size of a mountain.

Speaker 1 You didn't say

Speaker 1 that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 Dogs don't get that big.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 that derailed the whole experience,

Speaker 1 stopped the story in its tracks.

Speaker 1 Instead, you said,

Speaker 1 yes,

Speaker 1 and we have just ten minutes to find his squeaky toy.

Speaker 1 It's somewhere in the canned goods.

Speaker 1 You took what you were given

Speaker 1 and helped push it a little further.

Speaker 1 Was that what SK did?

Speaker 1 Took what the moment gave them

Speaker 1 and leveled up.

Speaker 1 I had a feeling it was.

Speaker 1 I sat on one of the benches

Speaker 1 and laid my polishing cloth

Speaker 1 out on the seat beside me

Speaker 1 to let it dry completely in the sunshine.

Speaker 1 The sound of the fountain was steady

Speaker 1 and soothing,

Speaker 1 ringing out like a set of wind chimes moving in the breeze.

Speaker 1 I tipped my head back

Speaker 1 and let my eyes close.

Speaker 1 I've always been fascinated

Speaker 1 by the way sunlight

Speaker 1 looked through my eyelids.

Speaker 1 Even as a child,

Speaker 1 I would stop mid-play

Speaker 1 in the yard

Speaker 1 to close my eyes

Speaker 1 and lift my face

Speaker 1 and watch the light flash and change.

Speaker 1 The breeze must have been blowing up high in the trees.

Speaker 1 Every now and then,

Speaker 1 a shadow flickered across my face.

Speaker 1 I took slow, deep breaths,

Speaker 1 feeling so calm

Speaker 1 and content here by the fountain.

Speaker 1 A sound brought me back

Speaker 1 and I tipped my chin down

Speaker 1 and blinked my eyes open.

Speaker 1 A child, maybe five or six,

Speaker 1 stood at the edge of the fountain,

Speaker 1 and behind him, a few feet,

Speaker 1 waited an older woman, smiling down at him.

Speaker 1 She spotted me on the bench,

Speaker 1 gave me a quick wink.

Speaker 1 The little boy held a marble in his hand,

Speaker 1 hovering it above the basin of the fountain.

Speaker 1 I couldn't help the smile that spread over my face,

Speaker 1 witnessing this rite of passage

Speaker 1 that I too had first partaken in at about his age.

Speaker 1 His lips were moving, and his eyes were closed.

Speaker 1 And when he froze for a moment, she encouraged him to

Speaker 1 go on, drop it in.

Speaker 1 His fingers opened, and there was a plop.

Speaker 1 He leaned over the edge to watch it fall and gather with the others in the basin's bottom.

Speaker 1 She reached out her hand to him,

Speaker 1 and he reached up to it,

Speaker 1 and off they went.

Speaker 1 I tipped my face back to the sun,

Speaker 1 wondering what he had wished for,

Speaker 1 and whispered to myself

Speaker 1 Yes

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Sweet dreams