The echoes of the humming engine fill the truck’s cab with a dull gray wall of noise, one overtaken only by the blaring radio and the regular beeps of taxi horns. Processions of automobiles flow down the city streets, crossing over the white lane markers, swerving over the dotted lines like fish riding the crisscrossed currents of a mighty river.

A blur of taxicabs speed across the four lanes of the one-way downtown street, the red glare of stoplights reflecting off the shiny yellow cars. I wait for them to come to a stop then reach my right hand across the dash and punch the release lever on the parking brake. My truck lurches forward, the heavy load in its rear shaking all twenty-four feet of the vehicle.

My alarm clock had yet to ring. The shades on my window had yet to pass a ray of morning light. I brushed them aside to see the back alley’s streetlights through the 5:00 AM darkness. Then I saw it – the cause of the morning’s rude awakening.