“ I have a story to tell you!” a voice says, you will lift up your head from your damp hands. An old man is smiling at you from the end of the bench, he sits politely as he clings to his walking stick.

The sun was setting, casting an amber glow over the street as I waited on the worn wooden bench at the bus stop. My eyes were drifting along the cracks in the pavement when I noticed someone sitting down beside me.

 As my classmates and I are dismissed from school, I decide to take the long way to my bus stop. For I have quite some thinking to do. I watch the birds fly. The squirrels scrambling for shelter as the howling wind picks up.

"I have a story to tell."

The bench is cold as glass and the fog strings its way across the street,

an engulfing mass of smokey water.

The bus is late.

I often sit under the moonlight and listen to what the night has to offer; 

Sometimes it offers more than you think. 

I listen to the soft rustling of the leaves, 

 As my classmates and I are dismissed from school, I decide to take the long way to my bus stop. For I have quite some thinking to do. I watch the birds fly. The squirrels scrambling for shelter as the howling wind picks up.

I tell this story to my children often enough that I fear they will memorize it and think it real. I thought it was real too when I was younger. Now I know better.