The fountain was off again

The fountain in the office park is a low ring of water when it works and a concrete dish when it doesn't. This spring it has been off more days than on. I don't know who decides. There is a facilities number on a sticker inside the lobby, and I have never called it about water. Other people might have. The basin doesn't change either way.

Tuesday it was dry. Coins lay in the low part, mostly pennies, a few silver ones gone dark, and a mess of leaves from the tree that drops small oval leaves no one can name when I ask. A paper cup sat on its side against the tile. I didn't pick it up. Picking it up would make me the person who maintains the fountain, and I came here to sit for ten minutes before the stand-up that could have been an email and wasn't.

The bench faces the basin. With the water off, the bench faces a dish of coins, which is a different object. People walked past and didn't look. When the water is on, some of them look. The noise covers the freeway a little. Without it, the freeway is the main sound, and the coins are just metal someone else wished on when the pump was running.

By Thursday the fountain was on again. The coins were gone under the water, or someone had taken them. The cup was gone. The leaves were still there, turning in a slow circle because the jet isn't centered. I ate lunch on the same bench and didn't feel any particular relief. The on-and-off is the normal condition. A notebook that pretended the fountain was a landmark would be lying. It is a machine with a schedule I don't have. I write down the days I notice. That is the whole record.