Nothing Strange

“How strange,” murmured Riya, eyes still fixed on the pages in front of her.

“What’s your fairy godmother up to now?” Sana asked from the other end of the room, not bothering to look up from her book. Her voice carried the usual teasing tone, playful but familiar.

Riya smiled faintly. “Nothing. I was just thinking. No fairy godmother involved this time,” she said, though the words felt like a half-truth.

Sana rolled her eyes dramatically and buried herself back in her reading.

Riya turned her gaze back to her notebook. She gently placed it on the desk and ran her fingers over the slightly rippled pages. Only yesterday, it had been soaked through during the downpour, left forgotten in her open bag as she rushed home under a leaky umbrella. It was ruined completely. But now, though the paper was wrinkled, the ink hadn’t smudged. Not even a little. Her words, her sketches, her thoughts, all still there. Perfectly intact.

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. These strange little incidents were always there, small saves from the brink.

Misplaced items returning to the exact spot she’d already checked three times. Plants wilting one day and blooming the next. A sudden gust of wind lifting a falling photo before it hit the puddle.

Her wishes, sincere ones, ones that truly mattered to her, were always granted.

She never had an explanation. Just a feeling.

At first, Riya had tried telling people about this strange intervention of luck to her roommate Sana, her parents, and even her old literature teacher once. But every time, she was met with logic and laughter. Coincidence, they said. You just forgot. Things like that don’t happen.

So, she stopped explaining. And simply started noticing more.

Moments like these—this notebook, these words salvaged from rain—felt like tiny miracles. Not loud or dramatic, but tender and precise, as if the universe itself had bent a little to protect what mattered to her.

Riya closed the notebook and let out a whisper. “Thank you.”

No one else heard it.

But she did.

A shimmer of presence passed through the still air. A subtle flicker of something unseen, like the brush of a breeze that didn’t exactly move the curtain. And somewhere deep in the silence, Riya felt a reply.

A wink. A warm, familiar hush.

“You’re welcome.”

Just for her to hear.

This piece is written in response to the two hundredth and fifty-eighth edition of Fiction Monday inspired by the word prompt – STRANGE hosted by yours truly. Do join in if you have a tale to tell.