7:30 a.m. Yellow lights, prying at the wooden Ventian blinds guarding the windows. Almighty hisses and unearthly growls threatening the front door. It could only a dragon.
The truth was almost as fantastical.
♠
But first, the scene needs be set with the boring bit. ♥ We live on a narrow, Industrial age street. The distance between street and door is less than one pace (@ 2.5 ft). ♥ Our home is a converted church school. The windows are high; so high, the neighbour children play handball against it with a soccer ball. There's no proper peeking (peeping, in the British vernacular) through those windows. ♥ A storm water drain resides where street and sidewalk meet outside our door. Max has developed the habit of lifting his leg over it. What's a castle without a moat?
♠
So, when we opened the door to see this dragon, our view was filled fully by this. A bilge truck. One black tube fed a stream of pressurized water into the naked drain. Another tube, larger, equipped with what appeared to be a kind of Archimedes' screw supped up the content of the drain: decaying leaves, cigarette butts and packaging, candy wrappers, train tickets and receipts, used tissues, and God-knows-what-else.
A huge modern, yellow oyster on wheels. It was simply a marvel.
