💬 Spotted a carving on our building gate after years of walking past it

There's a small carving on our building gate, bottom left corner, about knee height. A fish, I think. I've lived here 11 years. I must have walked through that gate 8,000 times. Never once saw it. Last Tuesday the watchman had locked it and gone for namaz, so I was stuck outside for 15 minutes. Nothing to do, phone on 4 percent. So I stood there and looked at the gate for the first time. It's a fish with a small crown on top, and 2 letters under it, worn almost flat. Maybe M and A. I asked the watchman when he came back. He's been here 20 years and he'd never noticed either. Then I asked the old uncle on the ground floor, who's lived here since the building went up. He knew straight away. Said the builder's wife was from Lucknow and the fish was her family's sign. Apparently it was on the old gate too, and when they replaced it in the 90s she made them copy it. She died years ago. The builder too. The flats have been sold and resold. But the fish is still there. Now I can't stop seeing it. Every time I come home I look down at the corner like an idiot. My son thinks it's the most exciting thing that's ever happened in the building. Makes me wonder what else I've walked past. There's an old stone near the mosque I've never read. Has this happened to you? Something right in front of you for years that you only just saw. I'm going to start standing still more often, I think. Not on purpose, but if the watchman goes for namaz again. Next time I'm stuck outside, I'm taking a proper look at that stone.

A fish with a small crown after 8,000 walks through the gate is a good lesson in how little we see. At my old school in Tarnaka I found a name carved in a corner of the staircase after 5 years, and I still wish I knew whose it was.

There is a faded date carved into the step outside my parents' house that I must have walked over ten thousand times without seeing it. I only noticed it while waiting for a delivery, standing still for once instead of rushing in and out. It turns out the house is older than my father ever mentioned. Now I catch myself looking at things I usually just walk past.