The Fountain in the Square

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Speaker 1 Welcome to bedtime stories for everyone.

Speaker 1 In which

Speaker 1 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 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 nothingmuchappens.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 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 is called The Fountain in the Square.

Speaker 1 And it's a story about a place to make a wish.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 by adding to the world.

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

Speaker 1 I'm not as young as I once was, but I care a lot about maintaining my physical and mental wellness.

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Speaker 1 Their gummies are formulated to help relieve discomfort, stress, and sleeplessness. And right now, nothing much happens listeners can save 30% on their first order.

Speaker 1 Just head to cornbreadhemp.com/slash nothing much

Speaker 1 and use code nothing much at checkout.

Speaker 1 That's cornbreadhemp.com/slash nothing much

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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 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, 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 were carved birds and fish.

Speaker 1 A wing of one of the birds was a local good luck charm

Speaker 1 and had been rubbed to a glossy shine by the hands of many, many people over the 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 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 We're 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 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 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 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 to day,

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 4SK

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,

Speaker 1 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 zop 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

Speaker 1 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 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 together 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 It 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 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 to day,

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 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 S K

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

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 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 and 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

Speaker 1 at about his age.

Speaker 1 His lips were moving,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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.