Despite his excellence, they refused to appoint him to the public sector, claiming that he is socially unfit. His father, who passed away with his brother in a car accident, used to work as a courier in a private sector company. Since then, he has been working as a loader in a food warehouse, waking up just minutes before his shift, and hastily putting on his shirt and trousers in front of the door. On this morning, before leaving, he glanced at the TV which he always leaves on, and saw a panicked anchor delivering urgent news: "Citizens woke up today to find that the streets have disappeared."
He didn't believe what she said, for if the streets had disappeared as she claimed, then what holds up the buildings and prevents them from falling?
But he stood bewildered at the entrance of the house, with some of his neighbours standing and exchanging the same puzzled looks. Except for the houses that floated in front of them, there was nothing but void.
One of the neighbours threw himself in front of the entrance, hoping to find a solid ground to stand on. He tried to stop him, but the nervous neighbour was faster, and for two full minutes, his screams echoed in everyone's heads, noisy at first, then gradually fading until they disappeared completely.
He returned to his apartment again, thinking of a way to get to work, as he receives the pay for the past two weeks today, and his fridge has been empty for three or four days. Besides, the warehouse manager who has control over the situation is holding a grudge against him for reasons he does not know. He looked out the window, opening it for the first time since his mother's death, and saw panicked women leaning out of the opposite windows, so he immediately closed it again.
Where did the streets go? He was preoccupied with the gnawing of his stomach and removing his clothes, and opening the closet to put on a clean pyjama instead of the one that was soaked with nightmares from last night, but to his astonishment, he did not find any clothes in the closet, and even the papers he used to stack on the shelf disappeared. What surprised him the most, and caused him fear and terror, is that the streets that disappeared from the city were neatly arranged in his closet.
Naked, he placed his right foot in the closet, trying to control his nerves, and when his foot settled on one of the streets, he quickly put his other foot. The street was completely empty, without houses on either side, no cars, and no humans coming and going, only fruit-bearing trees lazily following it, and a river waving at its end.
He thought about leaving the street and heading to his closet, then to his room, and carrying the streets one by one on his shoulder, returning them to their old places. He thought about starting with his own street, then the one after it, and so on until the city returns exactly as it was as if he were putting puzzle pieces back in their places.
He also thought about the daughter of the persecuted storekeeper who was about to give birth and needed the street to go to the hospital, and about his neighbour who he insulted a few days ago who must exercise by walking as advised by the doctor, or his bones will become stiff, and about his girlfriend who left him to marry a rich man who should not fall into nothingness after her little food runs out.
He thought that he must hurry, and he thought of many things, but he did not think that the closet was completely closed, so he could not open it from the inside. From the outside, no one had ever visited it.