It's Still Life

The Legend of Jimmy Barglefloop

a six sentence story

Everyone assumed Jimmy Barglefloop carried a magnifying glass to search for rare things, but when someone asked, “What do you do all day!” he slipped a smiled into his reply, “I just notice stuff.”

All day he wandered marshes enlarging dew on spider silk, warts on toads, and the tiny scratches on snail shells so they’d remember they’d survived yesterday.

When travellers lost their way, Jimmy never pointed toward the road; he simply magnified the next footprint until it seemed too obvious to ignore.

One rainy afternoon he discovered that sadness shrank people far more quickly than age, so from then on he quietly enlarged forgotten kindnesses whenever he found them.

No one ever thanked him; no one ever knew he had been there, though they often remarked that the world seemed unexpectedly friendlier that day.

So if you should meet a frog wearing a weather-beaten, side-slipping hat who’s sat in a magnificent puddle, be polite, because there is every chance he has already made one small part of your life easier without telling you.

This is a one-off, not a series, and written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “slip”. The featured image is AI-generated (Midjourney) using the single word “barglefloop”.©Misky 2006-2026.