Everyday magic, out in the wild
Real moments, shared by real people.
Small acts of kindness (given, received, or simply witnessed) collected here to inspire your own. Every story is shared by someone in the Gnomely community, lightly edited for length where needed.
These happened by chance. Gnomely helps you plan one on purpose.
The white lie that took me an hour off course
It was late, I was at the train station waiting for a taxi to take me to a wedding, and I got talking to a young girl who was stranded there with nowhere to go. On a whim, I told her we were heading the same way. We weren't. My taxi ended up going a full hour out of its way so I could drop her somewhere safe, before finally continuing on to my own hotel.
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A note in my locker on the worst day
I'd just failed an exam I'd been dreading for months. Someone I barely knew from class left a note in my locker that just said "you're more than one bad day." I never found out who it was.
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Fixing a neighbour's fence, unasked
She'd broken her wrist and hadn't mentioned the fence panel that blew down in the storm. I noticed it on my way past, borrowed her toolbox, and had it fixed before she got home from the hospital appointment.
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Two strangers, one umbrella
Torrential rain, one umbrella, two people at a bus stop who'd never met. One just held it over both of them without a word until the bus came. Small, but it stuck with me all day.
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A birthday card for the postman
He'd mentioned once, in passing, that nobody really made a fuss of his birthday. I found out the date from a delivery note and left a card and a flask of coffee on the step that morning.
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The stranger who paid for my shopping
My card got declined at the till with a full trolley and a queue behind me. A woman I'd never met just tapped her card and said "pay it forward sometime" before I could even say no. I still think about her most weeks, and I have paid it forward, twice now.
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