There was a puddle in the middle of a path.
Nobody knew exactly when it had arrived.
It had probably rained during the night.
The puddle did not know this.
It knew only that, in the morning, it was there.
A blackbird came along.
It hopped over the puddle.
A leaf fell into it.
The puddle reflected the sky.
For a while, everything was quiet.
Then the sun came out.
The puddle became smaller.
It did not mind.
It had never expected to stay the same size.
By lunchtime, it was smaller still.
By afternoon, there was only a damp patch on the path.
The next morning, the puddle was gone.
A blackbird came along.
It hopped over the damp patch.
Then it stopped.
It looked down.
It looked around.
It seemed puzzled.
The following night, it rained again.
In the morning, there was a puddle in the middle of the path.
The blackbird came back.
It looked at the puddle.
The puddle looked at the sky.
Neither said anything.
The blackbird hopped across.
The puddle was larger than it had been the day before.
The blackbird seemed pleased.
It began to visit every morning.
Sometimes the puddle was large.
Sometimes it was small.
Sometimes leaves floated in it.
Sometimes there were little bubbles.
Once, a feather landed on the surface and stayed there until the wind carried it away.
The puddle began to wonder about something.
Was it the same puddle?
It had no idea.
The water in it was always changing.
Some of the water ran away into the ground.
Some evaporated into the air.
More arrived when it rained.
The path beneath it was the same.
The sky above it was never quite the same.
Even the blackbird was different from one morning to the next.
And yet, every morning, the blackbird came to the same place.
The puddle began to think that perhaps being the same did not mean having the same water.
Perhaps it meant being the place where certain things happened.
One morning, the blackbird did not come.
The puddle waited.
The sun rose.
A cloud passed over.
A beetle walked across its edge.
Still the blackbird did not come.
The puddle felt strangely empty.
It had not known that a puddle could feel empty.
But there it was.
That afternoon, the sun was warm.
The puddle became smaller.
By evening, it was almost gone.
The next morning, there was no puddle.
Only the path.
The blackbird arrived.
It stood where the puddle had been.
It looked down.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then it tilted its head.
And flew away.
Several days passed.
Then it rained.
Not heavily.
Just enough.
Water gathered in the hollow in the path.
By morning, there was a puddle again.
The blackbird returned.
It stood beside the water.
It did not know whether this was the puddle from before.
The puddle did not know either.
But when the blackbird hopped into it, the water moved around its feet.
And for a moment, the puddle was there.
The blackbird was there.
The path was there.
The sky was there.
And that seemed to be enough.
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