At 3 AM on Friday morning, April 16th, the rain began. This wasn’t a gentle spring rain, but more of the deluge variety. Flood warnings went up around the city and suburbs, and for those people who were going to work on that Friday morning, it would, most likely, be an adventure. And though nothing tragic happened because of this storm, it took the entire day for it to finally pass.

Sarah was 23 and a graduate of a fine school with an MFA in creative writing. Her parents encouraged her to go off to France, spend a month or so, and make some real progress on the novel she had started. She had finished the first chapter and then it just stopped. Nothing. Days went by and she sulked around her apartment getting depressed.

One evening in a very large city, a mother and daughter walked along the railway tracks in silence, occasionally glancing at each other with smiles. They were dressed in long, colorful coats, and each held a vibrant umbrella, which protected them from the cold and rain. Though their surroundings seemed rather daunting and dangerous, it never occurred to them that they shouldn’t be on this quest for discovery.

A yellow cab, driven by Max, a seasoned cab driver and sometime standup comic, splashed through the rain-soaked street known as Broadway, its windshield wipers working furiously to keep Max’s view clear. The early evening darkness was only intensified by the thick sheets of rain pouring down from the sky.