Invisible lives

LONG before the city stirs, a sanitation worker descends into the underbelly of civilisation.

He owns no mask, no boots, no uniform; he only possesses second-hand shoes whose soles have long forgotten resistance, and a ragged scrap of cloth tied across his mouth. The cloth, damp with filth, clings to his face, offering no defence against the stench of sewage and rot. There is no protective gear — there never was. Only a body made disposable by the city it serves.

Each morning, without fail...