The lights around Lake Merritt flicker off. Dawn has opened a shimmering, pink feathered window in the pearl-gray sky through which daylight begins to pour over the water, dazzling, like liquid mercury.
Buses rumble by.
The workaday city shakes itself awake. Quickly, it seems, the pulse and population around Lake Merritt change. Traffic floods the boulevards that surround it. Footpaths fill with folk. Rowers pull their way across the waters.