“The watering can speaks to me,” Old Wang declared one misty morning, his weathered face illuminated by dawn’s first light. The villagers gathered around him in the town square, their expressions ranging from concern to curiosity.
“It tells me stories of crops yet to grow, of rains that will never fall,” he continued, clutching the rusted green vessel to his chest. Mrs. Li, who ran the only convenience store in their remote village, stepped forward with hesitation in her eyes.
“Wang, perhaps the summer heat—” she started.
“No!” he interrupted, “Listen… can’t you hear it? The whispers of tomorrow’s harvest?”
The watering can, an ordinary object from Mrs. Li’s store, had transformed in Old Wang’s hands. To others, it remained a simple tool, but to him, it had become a vessel of prophecy.
“My cucumbers will grow tall as houses,” he’d tell anyone who’d listen, “The watering can promised.” And mysteriously, they did. His modest plot flourished while others withered in the drought.
Young Ming, a child of twelve with eyes too wise for his age, would often sit with Old Wang as he worked his miracle garden. “How does it speak to you, Uncle Wang?”
“In the language of water and earth,” Old Wang would reply, pouring crystalline streams that seemed to defy gravity, spiraling upward before gently kissing the leaves. “Each drop carries a story.”
As autumn approached, the villagers began noticing strange occurrences. Flowers bloomed in impossible colors, vegetables took shapes from children’s drawings, and the air around Old Wang’s garden shimmered like heat waves in winter.
“The watering can is hungry,” Old Wang confided to Ming one evening, his voice trembling. “It wants more than water now.”
Ming watched as Old Wang’s hands, once strong and sure, began to transparent, like morning dew catching light. “Perhaps you should stop using it, Uncle Wang.”
“Too late, child. We made a bargain, the can and I. A life for a life.”
The village council convened, debating what to do about Old Wang’s increasingly ethereal presence. Mrs. Li suggested confiscating the watering can, but none dared approach it after seeing shadows dance within its spout.
On the last day of autumn, Ming found Old Wang’s garden empty, save for the watering can lying on its side. The plants had withered overnight, leaving behind crystalline structures that chimed softly in the wind.
“He became water,” Ming told the gathered villagers, his young voice steady. “The watering can needed a soul to keep its magic.”
Mrs. Li removed the watering can from her store’s inventory that evening. Yet somehow, it reappears on her shelves every spring, waiting for another gardener who might hear its whispers.
In the village now, they say that on quiet nights, you can hear Old Wang’s laughter in the sound of falling rain, and his vegetables still grow in impossible shapes—though no one dares to eat them anymore.
Ming, who inherited Old Wang’s plot, leaves a cup of tea by the garden gate each morning. “For Old Wang,” he says, “wherever he flows now.”
The watering can sits in Mrs. Li’s store, ordinary and innocent, waiting for the next dreamer who might believe in its promises of extraordinary gardens and impossible harvests. But the villagers know better—some conveniences come at a price too steep to pay.