Level Concrete

I slipped through the propped fire exit door and walked down into the subterranean parking garage. The vast grid of bare concrete and repetitive yellow parking lines stretched out endlessly under rows of buzzing fluorescent tubes. A stray plastic parking ticket lay crookedly near the tire barrier of empty stall forty-two. I stepped right up to it, fixing my eyes onto the hollow expanse of empty concrete ahead. Three. Two. One. Zero. Nothing challenged the silence. With a measured push of my boot, I nudged the slip of paper until its printed barcode ran exactly parallel to the curb.