Bernard Lee had never been the kind of man to expect anything extraordinary from life.
His world was made of small, predictable rhythms—tiny rituals that gave him a comforting sense of control. He liked knowing which cereal he'd eat in the morning (the boring but safe Cornflakes), the color of the bus that picked him up at 8:16 a.m. sharp (a cheerful but peeling red), and the weight of the paperwork that would greet him every day at Gibbons & Cartwright Insurance (soul-crushingly heavy, but manageable if attacked one form at a time).
His apartment was just as ordinary as he was: a narrow little unit squeezed above Mrs. Cattermole's bakery. The floors creaked like an old man's joints, the windows stuck on humid days, and the wallpaper was a strange shade of off-white that made everything look slightly dusty even when freshly cleaned. But Bernard loved it. It was his safe little nest.
He lived alone, save for a hardy fern named Gerald who refused to die no matter how many times Bernard forgot to water him.
That morning, Bernard's alarm went off with its usual shriek, and, as usual, he smacked it with a groggy hand and pulled the blanket over his head.
Five more minutes turned into fifteen, then twenty.
By the time he stumbled into the kitchen in his mismatched socks and crumpled blue shirt, he was already late.
His toast burned.
His coffee machine coughed out a pitiful half-cup.
His left shoelace snapped when he pulled it too hard.
Still, Bernard mumbled, "Could be worse," under his breath—his personal motto—and soldiered on, unaware that today was about to be anything but ordinary.
---
Outside, Willow Street bustled with the sleepy chaos of another Wednesday morning. Delivery trucks double-parked. Bicyclists weaved perilously through traffic. Mrs. Cattermole, round and pink-cheeked, waved cheerily from her bakery window, a tray of steaming buns in her hands. The air smelled sweet and yeasty, tinged with the sharp scent of autumn leaves turning brown.
Bernard adjusted his battered messenger bag and trudged toward the bus stop, stopping only when he spotted the Vendo-Matic 3000—an ancient vending machine that had been stubbornly clinging to life outside Dunphy's Hardware for decades.
He fished a few coins from his pocket.
His stomach grumbled.
Chocolate would make the morning better. Chocolate could fix anything.
He jabbed the button for his favorite—a caramel-filled bar wrapped in golden foil. The machine whirred, groaned, shuddered... and then, to his amazement, two chocolate bars tumbled into the tray.
Bernard froze. Was this a trick? A test? A cosmic reward for surviving the burnt toast?
He glanced around guiltily, half-expecting a hidden camera crew to jump out. But the only witnesses were a flock of pigeons and Mr. Dunphy's ancient beagle, snoring on the sidewalk.
"Well," Bernard muttered, pocketing both bars, "not gonna argue with fate."
He turned toward the bus stop just in time to nearly collide with an old man sitting alone on the bench.
"Sorry!" Bernard exclaimed, skidding to a halt.
The old man looked up with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes. He was a wiry thing, all sharp edges and crinkled wrinkles, wrapped in a massive tweed coat that swallowed him whole. A battered bowler hat perched atop his head at a jaunty, slightly ridiculous angle.
"No harm done, son," the man rasped, his voice like gravel tumbling down a gentle slope.
He tapped his cane against the concrete, a lazy, rhythmic thunk-thunk-thunk.
"But if you're in a hurry," he added with a sly grin, "you might want to catch the next bus. Not this one."
Bernard frowned. "Why?"
The old man just winked, tapping the side of his crooked nose in a gesture that somehow managed to be both playful and faintly ominous.
Before Bernard could press for answers, the bus squealed to a stop. People surged forward. Bernard hesitated for just a moment—then, against every practical instinct, he hung back.
The doors hissed shut right in front of him.
"Hey—!" he protested weakly, but the driver just shrugged and pulled away, leaving a faint trail of diesel fumes and disappointment.
Bernard sighed.
Maybe the old man had been right.
Maybe he'd just dodged a terrible commute filled with crying babies and broken air conditioning.
Or maybe he'd simply missed the bus for no good reason, because Bernard Lee's life wasn't exactly a tapestry woven with cosmic meaning.
He turned to thank the old man—
—but the bench was empty.
No tweed coat.
No bowler hat.
Not even the faintest scuff marks on the pavement.
Bernard stood very still, the hair prickling at the back of his neck.
He wasn't a superstitious man. He didn't believe in fate, destiny, or guardian angels dressed like extras from a 1940s movie.
And yet.
Something was different this morning.
He could feel it, thrumming faintly in his bones, like the buzzing anticipation before a storm.
---
Shrugging off the odd encounter, Bernard began to walk, hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets, the double chocolate bars a reassuring weight against his side. He passed the crooked lamppost outside Dunphy's Hardware, where the paint peeled away like curling strips of old parchment. He nodded absently at Millie's Antiques, where the grumpy black cat named Lord Winston surveyed him with royal disdain.
Everything was as it should be.
Until he reached the corner of Willow and Maplenook.
There, lying inconspicuously on the cracked sidewalk, was a wallet.
Bernard nearly stepped over it before the glint of worn leather caught his eye.
He bent down cautiously. It was thick, battered, the kind of wallet that had seen a lifetime of back pockets and coffee spills. Faded initials were embossed on the corner: G.L.M.
Bernard glanced around. People bustled past, heads bent, earbuds jammed in ears. No one seemed to have dropped anything. No one was searching. No one even glanced his way.
He opened the wallet with hesitant fingers. Inside, he found:
A driver's license so faded he could barely read the name.
A handful of receipts from places he'd never heard of—Rutherford's Curiosities, The Hollow Cup Café—written in looping, old-fashioned script.
And a single check.
Made out to bearer.
For $500,000.
Bernard's breath caught in his throat.
He blinked rapidly.
Once.
Twice.
The number didn't change.
It was still there, crisp and clear, the amount gleaming against the soft yellow of the check paper like a beacon.
Half a million dollars.
Just lying there.
His heart thundered so loudly he was sure people could hear it, and yet the world carried on obliviously around him. A mother scolded her child for dropping a toy. A man in a sharp suit barked into his phone about quarterly reports. Life didn't pause for Bernard Lee's discovery.
He looked again, desperately seeking a catch.
But the wallet was real.
The check was real.
The possibility... was real.
Slowly, almost reverently, Bernard tucked the wallet into the inside pocket of his coat. His fingers trembled slightly.
As he turned away from the spot where fate had so casually upended his life, a stray thought chased after him:
This wasn't an accident.
Somewhere, someone had meant for him to find it.
And Bernard Lee's perfectly ordinary life was about to become something else entirely.
---