A Central American sunrise this morning, revealed through the thin windows of a low haze that reminds me more of mist than fog.  Walking to my bus stop, there are surprisingly few people or sounds in the streets.  Until off in the distance I hear the wail of a siren call out–the sound that most oft punctuates city life, and speaks in undulating sorrow.  Across the street, while a woman exchanges numbers with an ATM, the toy terrier at her feet turns his head aloft and howls in tune with the ambulance.  Seeing this domestic creature, so unlike its ancestral wolf in moonlight, but nonetheless taking hold of those roots, gives me a smile, and I look around for one to share it with.  But the man on the bench wears headphones, and doesn’t hear.  So too with the woman.  Smile unshared, I walk on and reach the line for the bus where, moments later, a couple yet amidst the evening’s inebriation stumble forth.  “What’s this?” they ask to a man with white earbuds and downturned eyes.  Then the next.  Then the next.  I tell them we’re on our way to work, though my answer is met with disbelief and a colorful proposition.  As the bus pulls up, and we begin to board, the woman yells after me, “nah, have fun at the casino you guys!”  I smile, and look up at a bus full of headphones.