Midnight Pitch

The heavy metal shutter of my dumpling truck slammed down with a finality that echoed off the river, sealing in the steam and the smell of five hundred scallion folds. I stood in the narrow aisle between the steamer and the fryer, chest heaving, staring at the empty lane.

Silence.

Not true silence—the river still lapped against the pilings, and the distant hum of the city never died—but the specific, deafening quiet of a shift that had finally ended. Or should have.