Two days ago, at approximately 3.45 Thursday morning, a truck driver named Gregorio Rabassa misjudged the clearance beneath the pedestrian overpass on the thirty-second block of Avenida Cahuide. His truck, packed with washing machines and destined for a warehouse not far from there, hit the bottom of the bridge, shearing the top off his trailer and bringing part of the overpass down on to the avenue below. The back of the trailer opened on impact, spilling the appliances into the street. Fortunately, at the time of the accident there were no other cars on that stretch of road, and Mr Rabassa was not seriously injured. Emergency crews arrived within the hour, flooding Cahuide with light, and set about clearing the road of debris. Scraps of metal, pieces of concrete, the exploded insides of a few washing machines, all of it was loaded and carted away. Except for the ruined bridge, little evidence remained of the accident by the morning rush, and many people who lived nearby didn’t even hear what had happened while they slept.

It was the year I left my parents, a few useless friends, and a girl who liked to tell everyone we were married, and moved two hundred kilometres downstream to the capital. Summer had limped to a close. I was nineteen years old and my idea was to work the docks, but when I showed up the man behind the desk said I looked scrawny, that I should come back when I had put on some muscle. I did what I could to hide my disappointment. I'd dreamed of leaving home since I was a boy, since my mother taught me that our town's river flowed all the way to the city.