"Linda Pumpernickel awoke with a start to the sound of a large vehicle speeding past her bedroom window. She nearly jumped out of her leathery skin as the back end of the truck collided with the curb and crashed down to the pavement on the other side. She felt around blindly for her thick glasses and caught sight of the Anti-Pro delivery truck just as it lurched around another corner, again failing to dodge the curb. Linda was almost certain she saw a piece fly off, although she could never be too certain these days, what with her declining vision and increasingly vivid imagination. What she was certain of, however, was the odd feeling of empathy gnawing at her amygdala the same way each street corner gnawed at that poor truck’s undercarriage. She envisioned more pieces of machinery flying off the vehicle as it careened helplessly down the road, destination unknown, unable to slow itself down. It could survive quite a few dings, the loss of its headlights, a wiper blade. . . but what would come of the poor beast when its motor was inevitably penetrated? What about its tires? A tear formed in the corner of her left eye as she pictured the truck struggling to continue forward, slowing down, engine sputtering, coughing up vital fluids, until it could go no further and stopped lifeless and abandoned at the side of the road. 

            "She snapped out of the daydream and lifted up her glasses to wipe away the tear before it could drop. She scolded herself for relating so strongly to an inanimate object, remembering what had happened when her great uncle Theodore had done the same. Linda suddenly became aware of the throbbing in her temples and the burning at the base of her esophagus. Her back creaked as she reached for the bottle of antacid that lived on her bedside table. She took a swig and almost choked when she noticed the time displayed on her antique two-dimensional alarm clock. Had she really slept in until ten o’clock? She really was letting herself go. She felt a pang of guilt for wasting the morning, but what else would she have done? She didn’t have any important business to attend to. She didn’t have much business at all. Since her retirement nearly five years ago, the amount of business in her life had decreased dramatically. Much like the air in that poor truck’s tires."