The day dawned gray as hell. The raindrops spluttering onto the cracked skylight over the cot in the storage closet finally annoyed Solly enough to roll over one last time and attempt to screw his eyes back into his head.

"Aww, hell, that dream blew anyway...." he thought as he reached
for his pants. The murky thoughts of the day's upcoming events started to jell a bit, and so thinking it was probably gonna be at least an interesting (if not particularly gratifying) day, he realized that pulling on his jeans would be considerably easier if he were actually out of bed and standing up.

"Christine, is there any coffee left? Christine? I hope ya didn't eat my leftover eggplant stew from last night! Hey, Christine!" Finally,
realizing a reply was not to be forthcoming, he meandered towards the makeshift kitchen, stopping on the way to look out the window and it's less than magnificent view of Devon Avenue.

The same Indian restaurants, tacky storefronts and tawdry trapping of the neighborhood's commerce were just as visible and tepid as they always were. But yet, today, there was something different out there; something that caused him to wonder out loud "It's 9:30 in the morning. Where the Hell is everybody?"

Indeed. for two blocks in either direction,there was virtually no traffic, none of the typical midweek pedestrian bustle, Not even blind old Pervis Rivers, who virtually never left his post on the sidewalk at the corner newstand, was in evidence, although Moe, Pervis' faithful seeing-eye dog and confidante, was snoozing
peacefully at the side of Pervis' rickety plastic lawn chair pretty much like he always did.

Puzzled but decidedly more in need of caffeine than answers (at least for the moment) he continued his pilgrimage for coffee heading toward the kitchen after stopping to pee along the way. When he got to the kitchen, the coffeemaker was on, the pot empty and now cracked from being left on the burner in its unfilled state. "Dammit, Christine; again??"

Abandoning his notion for coffee for the moment, he yanked open
the refrigerator door to seek his last night leftovers that were to be
this morning's breakfast. It was not to be.

"Shit Christine......" The fridge was empty as usual. Well, There was no choice now except to go out onto the street. "Well, at least I can find out what's going on out there......"