It was sitting on the low concrete ledge beside an abandoned coin laundry on Maple Avenue. The building itself had been closed for years, its faded sign barely hanging from rusted bolts, but the small wall out front still caught a pocket of shade during the early morning hours.
That was where the bottle appeared.
Cold.
Sweating.
Quietly waiting.
It was just an ordinary plastic water bottle, the cheap kind you could buy by the case at any grocery store, but the label had been peeled halfway off, leaving cloudy adhesive marks along the side. The condensation rolling down its surface made a small dark patch on the dusty concrete beneath it.
There was no note.
No explanation.
No box asking for money.
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