The Street Sweeper

 The day after the party is just as lively as it was the night before. Instead of a street filled with the teeming totality of insanity of those caught in a deluge of happiness, it’s a street filled with the remnants of it. Confetti litters the roadway; along with other pieces of trash that one person must clean. He is the street sweeper, viewable from the convenient store window, viewable to everyone inside. He is the man who makes the after-party so lively.

 The man inside the big, bristly machine looks vacant in his uniform as he guides his monstrous sweeper down the street. He looks neither happy nor sad. It’s as if he is in his own little world as he sits in his own little chair. He must have a bland life, always sitting in that spot, collecting trash. He looks like a cog in the wheel, just doing a job that helps him get by in life. No one knows his name. He is just the man who keeps the street clean.

 People of all ages have their eyes glued to the bristly sweepers that are like the fastest brooms known to man. They are more interested in the machine than the man in control of it. He is like a stagehand working behind the scenes. Everyone sees his work, but no one sees him. They just see the wonders of such a large, street-sweeping machine.

 It could all be wrong, though. He can be a very happy man. He could’ve been a part of the party last night as an ordinary man at a local bar, or an onlooker from the sidewalks. But, he could also be a sad fellow, a man who missed the whole shebang because of his job. How he feels is a mystery. What is true, though, is that what everyone sees on the street is nothing more than a man behind the street sweeper; an invisible worker by day, but a very visible passerby—or customer of the store—by night.