Reality Sets In

I stepped outside and slipped into my hot tub early this morning.  In the calm and relative silence of predawn I contemplatively imagined I might hear the stars and planets jostling about in the royal blue dome of sky above.

After no more than a minute or so of soaking, reality, in the form of a garbage truck, set in.  With headlights scouring the hills and scattered trees beyond my home, and a single orange light strobing on top, the truck rattled and clanged out to the far reaches of Dana’s Point.  For the next few minutes, my only significant input was the advancing and receding sounds and the occasional beeps of the backup signal of the garbage truck making predawn rounds through country homes.

Oddly enough, I found a certain pleasure (if not reassurance) in the rumblings of the truck looping through the hills.  We are never fully alone out here.  You can always count on the garbage truck making the rounds on Wednesdays.  

-- Mitchell Hegman