Night Vector

Pitch blackness swallowed the crosswalk approach. Blind footing invites unannounced threats. I scouted the expansion joint beside the yellow tactile paving. My boot toe nudged an abandoned brass guitar string eyelet ring and an intact sapphire-blue glass bead half-buried in dry road grit. Viable hardware. I jammed the brass collar into a concrete fissure, hammering it rigid with one decisive heel stamp. Then I balanced the blue bead dead atop the hollow brass center. Headlights from a passing cruiser flared down the asphalt. The crystal ignited into an intense cyan spear cutting across the dark crosswalk. Perimeter locked down.