The hallways of the school glowed with polished marble and the bright laughter of children. Jesse moved through them quietly, broom in hand, a gentle presence that most never noticed. He was the janitor here, though he had been many things in many lives. His uniform was plain, the name tag worn smooth at the edges. He liked it that way.
The children’s voices lifted through the halls like birdsong. Jesse paused often to listen. To him, each laugh was a small testament to wonder, each question a prayer that did not need words. He believed that in the laughter of children, the world was briefly made whole.
He swept the floors each night, moving with careful steps. The teachers spoke of grades and futures, but he saw something else in the quiet corners of the school. He saw the way a shy girl paused at her locker each morning, her eyes bright with hope. He saw the boy who carried too much in his small shoulders, a weight no child should know.
At night, when the halls were empty and the moon spilled silver light through the high windows, Jesse wrote small notes on scraps of paper. Words like gentle blessings. “You are enough,” he wrote. Or, “Kindness is a light that never fades.” He tucked these notes into lockers and books, small offerings that no one would trace back to him.
One evening, he found a boy sitting alone in the courtyard, his head bent low over a phone. The screen glowed blue in the darkness, a small flicker in the boy’s pale hands. Jesse sat beside him, silent at first.
The boy did not look up. “I feel like no one sees me,” he said, his voice no louder than the wind rustling through the trees.
Jesse nodded, his eyes soft. “Sometimes it is enough that you are here,” he said. “Even the stars are small, but they still light the night.”
The boy looked at him then, a flicker of something in his eyes. He did not speak again, but he put the phone away and lifted his gaze to the sky.
Each morning, Jesse cleaned the bathrooms before the children arrived, scrubbing away the marks of the day before. He believed that even the smallest task held a kind of grace, if done with a willing heart. The echo of water in the tiled room was like a hymn to him, a quiet song of service.
He moved through the halls as the world woke outside. Cars rushed down city streets, parents spoke in hurried tones, the weight of ambition pressed against the glass of the windows. But inside these walls, for a few hours each day, there was something softer. Something that asked only to be seen and cherished.
One night, as he swept the last of the dust from a corner of the library, Jesse paused. A small note had fallen from a child’s book, written in bright ink and wobbly letters: “Thank you for the kind words.”
He smiled, folding the note gently. It was enough. In a world that often forgot the quiet ones, he would remember. He would keep writing those small notes, keep sweeping the floors, keep listening for the laughter that rose like small prayers in the dawn.
For tonight, that was enough.
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