I left my house today to find a thrumming of activity all around me. Having grown accustomed to my neighborhood slowly crumbling away in its own time, it took me a moment to process what was happening, other than as an impediment to traffic.

The first stoplight I reached was under repair. Turning lane blocked by a truck strongly braced, supporting a crane and a man. I paused an extra moment to squint through my windshield at the work, noting the leather gloves so like ones I once wore. We were not so much alike that I could know what he'd risen to do, what tools and strange words he'd employ, but I recognized his stance and his movements. The balance, the caution, the purposeful progress of someone who would finish things right, if only to be in the shade when the day's worst heat came around.

Continuing along my way, I saw my old brotherhood was out in force. In one block, milling machines chewing the pavement down to even, men reviewing the divots remaining. In the next, collapsible piping being snaked down a manhole, attached to a pump with a motor which sounded a little bit too out of tune. Nonetheless doing the work of the day, something I assumed must be required.

I remembered how the days would end for me, back when I began them that way. Eyes closed in my bed with dull aches from slight nicks; flickering images back for review. Befores and some afters of what I'd assembled, the challenges found as the day would progress. Bolts not quite stripped, papers confounding, the moments uncertain about what to do. How hours of sweating had gotten it done, all behind me, so I could let it all go.

I'd drift off without them, those troubles of days, knowing none made a dent in tomorrow. No doubt my muscles would twitch like a hound's dreaming of rabbits, with my body gone otherwise limp and relaxed.

I wish I'd known then how completing that was - I may never sleep that way again.