One rainy day an elderly woman spotted a small, gray button lying in a puddle on a street. She picked up the button, took it home, and dropped it in a jar that contained hundreds of buttons of different sizes and colors. For years the button remained in the jar as other buttons were added and subtracted to the collection, and it seemed absent from the world, an artifact from times past. Then one fall day, the woman's grandson tore his flannel shirt while playing football, and the woman retrieved the button from the jar and sewed it to the shirt, making the small gem alive again in the universe.

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