Samuel had been a plumber for twenty-five years. Not just a plumber in the simple sense of fixing leaks or unclogging drains, but a city worker hardened by routine, noise, and the quiet weight of other people’s mess. He had worked through freezing winters where pipes burst like gunfire in abandoned buildings, and summers where the heat made garbage trucks smell like something alive and rotting at the same time. He’d seen everything a city could discard—broken furniture, forgotten belongings, lives reduced to trash bags and cardboard boxes. He used to joke that nothing surprised him anymore. But that morning...
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