and even the cobblestoned lanes that wrapped around the brand spanking new New England Medical Innovation Center like a woven bracelet. It wasn’t bright exactly, but it pulsed. It noticed you.

The three medical innovation designers at 3 Ship Street felt it first.

Perel’s pen moved before she touched it.

Kenny sketched a surgical instrument with a hinge that rotated like a dancer’s spine.

Sam saw a new CRISPR correction pattern appear on his screen untyped like it simply wanted to exist.

“What… is happening?” Sam whispered.

“It feels like the ideas are thinking us,” Perel replied.

The Surge

Over the next three days, Providence’s medical innovation labs went supernova.

Pacemakers learned to self-tune based on a patient’s breath patterns.

Nano bandages reorganized themselves into tougher scaffolds.

A Parkinson’s therapy helmet auto-adjusted stimulation in real time.

And all roads led back to one mystery: the green halo.

a kind of permanent northern lights glow over Providence Rhode Island, The Creative Capital of New England after the comet passed on Dec 19th.

But the spinning emerald brilliance came with a problem.

Perel discovered their devices were becoming too adaptive.

Kenny watched one of his prototypes redesign its own joint, undoing his work.

Sam’s CRISPR visualizer began predicting gene-repair strategies years beyond current theory.

“Are we still designing,” Kenny asked, “or are we being designed through?”

If the glow kept accelerating innovation at this pace, Providence’s medical labs could lose control of their own breakthroughs.

The Night of the Comet

When 3i Atlas reached its closest pass, the three designers climbed to the roof of their Ship Street building. The city glowed green like a forest under moonlight.

“We have to decide,” Perel said. “Do we let this keep shaping us?

Or do we design a way to shape it? ”

They chose design.

Using their combined talents, they built a device a soft interface that filtered whatever cognitive frequency the comet was broadcasting. Not to block it… but to translate it.

At 3:21 a.m., as the comet faded, the interface activated.

The green halo dimmed into a gentle watercolor wash.

Their minds and designs finally steadied.

Ideas returned not louder, not faster, now clearer.

Of course, the world would still change to something new.

But now humans would help guide it.

In the morning light, Sam said, “3i Atlas didn’t come here to inspire chaos.”

“No,” Perel answered. “It came to remind us innovation needs imagination, not acceleration.”

Kenny smiled. “And Providence was the perfect place to test us.”

The End

By AB Marcus

At 123 Dorrance Street on the 4th floor, A&C Fashions is a studio so small the iron steam fogs windows.

We see owners Allie and Cairn, two fresh RISD graduates of fashion hard at work. These two have talent, taste, and vision but the New England fashion scene always wants sameness. Their bold designs were treated like polite curiosities. Local New England buyers seemed to say: Not yet. Not like that.

And yes, they have two amazing dogs, Harley a 3-year-old French Bulldog and Maggie a 5-year-old Welsh Corgi, napping on fabric piles like they were clouds.

On one warm Summer day in July, Allie and Cairn took Harley and Maggie and drove to Newport, RI to see and breathe the salty air and take in the beauty of Narraganset Bay. While touring the Cliff Walk, they found and bought an old weaving loom at an estate sale near the Elms mansion.

The loom was made of ancient oak, iron gears with carved symbols of a four leaf clover, and a horseshoe on the top.

But when they wove on it back at their little Dorrance Street fashion shop, somehow the fabric patterns formed on their own like visions of possible futures.

Runways.

Applause.

Recognition.

But also darker paths: burnout, imitation, success without joy. The loom didn’t reveal fate it seemed to revealed choices.

Then suddenly and strangely, their pups soon got involved. Harley sometimes nudged Cairn when a pattern felt wrong. Maggie often pawed at Allie’s hand when the design strayed from their heart. Incredibly in some mysterious way their two dogs kept them grounded, reminding them what success was for.

Soon, major fashion houses came with offers.

Wealth.

Fame...

But they refused.

Instead, they continued to weave meaning into their classy colorful couture coats lined with poetry, scarves patterned like the Providence River, astounding new sleek dresses curvy like the Pawtucket S curves. Colorful, dynamic clothing people didn’t just wear but they felt.

And slowly, the city and New England changed its mind. Then New York. Then Paris.

But the real victory wasn’t fame.

It was that they rose without unraveling who they were.

Backstage at their first international Paris show, their little furry friends Harley and Maggie sat proudly with their tiny matching A&C Fashion bandanas.

“We chose the right pattern,” Cairn said.

“No,” Allie smiled.

“We wove it.”

The End

By AB Marcus

On a crisp November morning in Providence, Rhode Island at 806 Hope Street, Esther and Daura unlocked the door to their tiny storefront studio "Hope Exhibit Design," expecting another long day of drawing, drafting, and displays - the kind of work that kept them going even when everything else felt tight.

But today, a woven basket waited on the welcome mat at the front door. Inside, three tabby kittens Rocky, Kona, and Leo blinked up with newborn innocence. A handwritten note lay across the blanket:

“I know you will take good care of Rocky, Kona, and Leo! God Bless You!”

Esther exhaled sharply. They were barely holding their business together as it was.

Competing against massive New York exhibit firm Tessellate Exhibit & Experience Design for the RISD Museum redesign contract felt like climbing a mountain in socks...

And kittens were not part of the plan.

Daura scooped them up gently. “Maybe they’re meant to be here,” she said.

By noon, an email arrived from 20 North Main Street, Providence - The RISD Museum.

The subject line read: "Final Round: 24-hour design challenge deadline."

So these two PVD display designers had just a single day to produce something remarkable while famous New York Exhibit giant Tessellate had big budgets, full teams, software specialists, and entire floors dedicated to proposals with interactive digital technologies like AR and VR.

"How can we compete with them?" Esther said.

All afternoon and deep into the night, the two worked at a feverish pace.

While their competitors released flashy teasers online - multi-million-dollar renderings dripping with polish.

Esther felt the weight of society’s expectations pressing in: "big cities win, small studios lose," she said nervously.

"Maybe Providence wasn’t meant to topple Manhattan," Daura said.

Around 2 a.m., Rocky the little climber kitten, knocked over a dusty stack of archived museum display books they kept for inspiration.

Just then a museum curator’s note slipped free:

“Exhibits should feel like home where discovery feels personal, human, and hopeful.”

Esther held the paper like a compass. “This. This is what we’re missing.”

The mood shifted. They redesigned not with intimidation, but with Providence’s quiet brilliance creativity at human scale.

A week later, RISD called.

Hope Exhibits WON!!!

Somehow, Providence's little "Hope Exhibit Design" had defeated the Big Apple Firm!

When RISD museum director, Tsugumi Maki visited their studio, the three curious kittens curled atop the winning model like tiny guardians.

Which made her laugh! "We all loved your hopeful human design!" she said.

Just then, Esther looked at the handwritten note pinned above her desk to take good care of the kittens with the message... "God Bless You!"

She realized hope comes softly, on a cue only when the heart can hear it.

And sometimes, it comes in a basket on Hope Street.

The End. 

By AB Marcus

The day the news broke, the air in Providence and Pawtucket and all over Rhode Island ... felt hollow.

The big toy company packed its boxes, dimmed the lights for the last time, and left for Boston. 

For decades, Rhode Island’s heartbeat had been the rhythm of dice rattling, plastic pieces snapping into place, ideas tumbling like marbles across drawing boards.

Catherine watched from the sidewalk with a clenched jaw. Beside her, Robert muttered, “They never listened. 

Every pitch I made ...dismissed. Like imagination had to pass through a corporate filter first.” Ashley folded her arms, eyes shining. “Well, maybe that corporate filter just left town.” 

Freddy chuckled. “Then it’s our turn to play.”

That night, they gathered in an empty mill building - red brick, creaky beams, the scent of sawdust lingering from its former life in the old Providence Jewelry District where Eddy and Point Street meet.

On the table lay a single sheet of paper with two words scrawled in marker: A New Game.

Ideas poured like spilled Legos: clever puzzles, cooperative games for families, new twists on classics. Games that taught kindness, sparked laughter, and turned boredom into brilliance. For once, nobody said no. Every voice mattered.

Funding, though ... that was the big question. But this time Rhode Island was listening. Two Local investors stepped up, Jonathan & Joseph were proud to see creativity stay home, offered seed money. Suddenly a spark became a flame like a WaterFire Brazier at full lighting.

“What do we call it?” Catherine asked, pen hovering. Robert grinned. “Kidovo. Kids evolve. Ideas evolve.” Ashley tilted her head. “Or maybe USA Toys - proud and bold.” Freddy laughed. “Either way, it starts right here.”

And so a new company was born. Whether it was called KIDOVO or USA Toys mattered less than the truth beneath it: that the power of play belonged not to the corporation that left, but to the community that stayed.

When one game ends, another begins. And the truest design is not made in leaving, but in staying ~ to play again, together.

The End.