[ WP ] The newspaper headline the next day read : `` Freak spatula incident leave 12 dead , 6 hospitalized . ''

A girl sat in the coffee shop at the corner of Main and 3rd, a small notebook and pen out on the table. The punky barista behind the counter hummed to the saccharine pop song on the radio as she stacked new cups in tall towers, barely capable of reaching the tops when she was finished. 
 
 The shop may have been quiet in the dead early morning but there was a gentle and constant bustle as sleepy customers came in, muttered their orders to the pink-haired girl, and stood, trying to avoid everyone else's eye contact. 
 A grizzled man with a determined look in his eye stood at the crosswalk, hands balled into fists. Passers by flowed around him; the air about his person heavy. He squinted across the street at the idyllic cafe in the foggy chill, spotted the teenaged girl with the notebook, and glared. 
 
 This young man had driven fifty miles already, having just left the highway and eager to get to all the retailers on his address list. Everything about him radiated fresh meat, from the ambitious look in his eye to the obsessively clean interior cab. That is not to say that truckers do not keep their cabs clean, but more to point out the gusto and meticulousness that he employed would likely dry up within the next three to four months. He awoke to three alarms he set on his phone, got out of the cab, stretched, got back into the cab, and was back on the road long before the sun had chance to come up to greet him. 
 
 He was so close to dropping off his shipments, he was giddy. After driving on the open road and watching fields and mountains pass him by, seeing the big city within the next curve in the road was like humanity welcoming him back. He was so close. 
 
 The girl scanned the early morning crowd in the coffee shop, perhaps looking for someone in the mix who did n't fit in with the rest of the sleepy commuters. She checked her small purse to make sure her phone was off, and breathed a mild sigh of relief. She leaned forward and grasped a pen, looking at a list of names in her small notepad. Next to each of the names there were dates, and as the list progressed the names started getting crossed out. She furrowed her brow and counted the days between some of the dates and today. She was running out of people to stay with. 
 On a whim, she looked out the window at the street, and met the eyes of the furious man. Instinctively, she crossed her arms, her left hand gripping her arm until it hurt, her right clutching the pen. 
 
 Upon meeting her gaze, he called out in the otherwise peaceful morning in the city. 
 
 She tensed up as the barista said, `` I think he's calling for you.'' She got up out of her seat and walked out the door shakily, facing the end of her brief stint living as a woman. 
 
 The man stormed toward her as she left the cafe. 
 
 The truck rounded the bend, the traffic light fading to yellow after he passed. 
 
 The angry man yelled out a boy ’ s name. The girl stood stock still outside the cafe ’ s door. 
 
 The driver swerved in the.4 seconds it took him to register the person in the street. 
 
 The newspaper headline the next day read: `` Freak spatula incident leave 12 dead, 6 hospitalized.''
