Oakhaven was a town small and neat, known for two things: lawns kept very well and the one big hole at Elm and Main. This was not just any hole; it was something to see, a deep, black, water-filled gap that ate up big orange cones used to warn cars and even had its own little weather system. People just called it The Pit.
For many years, the town council tried to fill in The Pit with bits of meaning found lying around fear. They fixed the streets near it, but The Pit always came back, a wet hole that showed everyone how much the city did not care, And then one night Mrs. Higgins, the weekend stargazer noticed something incredible. During this odd alignment between Jupiter and a traveling weather balloon The Pit started glowing. Not with any standard reflection, but with some sort of internal deep-sea luminescence.
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| The Glowing Pothole |
Next morning, By The Pit popped up a little hand-painted sign: “Oakhaven pothole & interdimensional portal- tours 10 AM-4 PM. $5.” Leo posted it there. He kept the vacancy for teenagers who resided across the street and were tired of watching cars swerve.
Leo’s tours were just jokes until a tourist from out of town in a loud Hawaiian shirt, Chet dropped his car keys into the murky water. Fishing net plus healthy dose of teenage sarcasm- that was all Leo had to use to retrieve them, but what he pulled up included not only Chet’s keys but also a perfectly preserved 17th-century Spanish doubloon and a slightly damp, signed photograph of Amelia Earhart.
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| The Pothole Curator |
Word broke out fast. It was no longer news, Pit magic had taken hold of the town and was running wild since it had stopped being contained as a municipal problem. Scientists came around, but their tools started going crazy near the edge. The only person who seems able to retrieve anything with any steadiness is Leo, who says you just got to “think of what you want” before dipping the net.Things pulled out became ever more strange and amusing:
- An iPhone 15 fully charged, but all the apps are now in ancient Sumerian.
- One, perfectly ripe mango from a world with three suns.
- A tax form for the year 2057 shows everyone in Oakhaven to be massively rich.
- A small, brass plaque reads: “Property of the Galactic Department of Lost & Found.”
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| Galactic Lost & Found |
The town council realizing they couldn’t fill in, source of interdimensional tourism, officially renamed the corner “The Pit Stop.” They hired Leo as the official “Pothole Curator” with a generous salary coming from and funded entirely by the doubloons and the $5 tour fees.
Leo, the once-bored teen now spends his days fishing for lost realities. He never knew what he would pull out next- a piece of history, a glimpse of the future, or just a very confused looking gold fish from a parallel universe. He learned that the greatest things in life are most often found in the places you least expect, particularly if those areas are ignored, hole-filled road. And that occasionally, the most effective way to address an issue is by monetizing its ridiculousness.
If You want to Read More Stories Here are the Links:
The Secret Life of the Town’s Only Pothole:
The Librarian Who Mapped Silence: A Fantasy Short Story of Librarian Magic
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