Things go missing.
They slip from pockets.
They wander from where they were last certain.
They disappear without asking permission.
Before Pebble, missing things caused alarm.
People retraced their steps.
They searched carefully.
They worried about what had been lost
and what the loss might mean.
Then Pebble arrived.
Pebble does not keep track of where things belong.
She carries something for a moment,
drops it for another moment,
and moves on without ceremony.
Things began to vanish wherever she went.
A sock without its pair.
A key that refused to answer.
A note that had been right there.
People looked for patterns.
Pebble was always nearby.
So they said, “Pebble must have taken it.”
Pebble did not deny this.
She did not return what was missing.
She did not acknowledge the concern.
She continued forward,
certain that whatever mattered
would catch up eventually.
Mohg noticed what was gone.
He did not rush to replace it.
He did not insist on recovery.
He stayed with the space where the thing had been
and let it be empty for a while.
And slowly, something changed.
If Pebble had it,
then it was not lost forever.
It was simply elsewhere.
Missing stopped meaning gone.
It meant delayed.
It meant out of sight.
It meant not now.
Things turned up again
in pockets that had already been checked,
in rooms that had already been searched,
or not at all.
And that was allowed too.
Sometimes things came back.
Sometimes they didn’t.
Pebble didn’t worry about it.
Mohg didn’t either.
They left the space open
for a while.
Things came back when they were ready.
