Before the Curtains Open

Today is Global Garbage Man Day. So we pause to think of the sanitation workers and refuse collectors who work while we rest.

Some of the most important work is done before dawn.

🌅🚛🌅🚛🌅

Dawn drapes

Streetlamps soften

The collector sets off

For the homes where soothed souls sleep

To toil.

🗑️📦🥀🚛🗑️

Gathers

Battered boxes

Wilted fronds and flowers

Empty containers that others

Discard.

🚗🏠👋🚛🏠

Curtains

Closed to his call.

Cars roll quietly by.

Mr. Smith gives a wave and steps

Away.

✨🛣️🚛✨🛣️

Street shines

As he collects

When the curtains are closed

And wakeful ones decide not to

Look on.

🌅🚛✨🛣️✨🚛🌅

For Mikeydred's June challenge

Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.