The Sound of The Bucket

The Sound of the Bucket

There was no bell in the hamlet.
No clock, no siren.
But every day, at exactly four o’clock,
we heard the sound of the bucket.

It was Louise, a woman we almost never saw.
She lived alone, near the old well, a little away from the other houses.
At four o’clock, she went out.
She was gently hauling a bucket of water.
We could hear the rope creaking, the water splashing, the iron striking the curb.
Then she came back in.
That was all.
But that sound…we grew attached to it.
It punctuated the days.
Like a gentle landmark.
Like a discreet heartbeat.

One day, the sound didn’t come.
Nor the next day.
Nor the day after.
The well remained silent.

Someone finally went to see.
Louise had died.
Calmly, in her sleep.
Everything was clean, tidy.
The bucket was empty, lying upside down.

So an old man from the hamlet came the next day,
at four o’clock.
He pulled out a bucket,
without needing to.
He filled it.
Then he put it back down.
And the noise returned.

Since then, every day at four o’clock, someone comes.
Not always the same one.
Sometimes a woman. Sometimes a child.
Sometimes a stranger passing by.
We don’t speak.
But we keep up the rhythm.
The creaking.
The lapping.
The sound of the bucket.

It’s not a tradition.
It’s not a ceremony.
It’s just what Louise did.
And what we continue to do. Because something in that sound says, “I’m still here.”