Asphalt Kings

On the eve of January 6th, when the cold night huddles against the windows, a very special caravan travels the roads. It is not shooting stars crossing the sky, but the glow of LED lights streaking along the highway.
They are cargo trucks, transformed into majestic sleighs with painted wooden boards, covered in glitter and decorated with lighted garlands. Their trailers, overflowing with toys and hope, are not headed to the North Pole, but to every neighborhood and every town, turned into magical workshops on wheels.
At the wheel of these heavy modern sleighs, the drivers sport fake cotton beards and embroidered robes over their reflective vests.
Melchior, with his slightly crooked crown, shifts gears with a golden glove; Gaspar wisely consults the GPS on his tablet; and Balthazar, with a white smile in the night, keeps rhythm with the radio, tuned to Christmas carols between traffic updates. They are anonymous heroes who, for one night, exchange their given names for those of legendary kings, and their logistics route for a stellar journey.
The journey is not without setbacks. A thick fog falls over the road, as if winter itself wants to test their faith. A truck, with its illuminated sleigh nose, gets a flat tire on the A-6 highway. But, like modern magic, a roadside assistance team dressed as royal pages appears, changing the tire with an efficiency worthy of the finest court.
The load of gifts is safe, and the caravan continues, because every stop, every delivery, is a promise that must be fulfilled before dawn.
Upon reaching the cities, the magic unfolds in silence. The large trucks become stealthy, generous shadows.
From their metallic interiors, the driver-kings extract packages and leave them in doorways, creating small oases of wonder next to mailboxes. They see the dark windows of sleeping children and smile beneath their beards, knowing that upon waking, the gray asphalt will have transformed, for a few hours, into a path covered in wrapping paper and tape.
When the first ray of sun grazes the buildings’ antennas, the caravan dissolves. The trucks, now stripped of their sleigh disguises, return to their hangars, and the drivers, tired but with shining eyes, store their crowns until next year. They leave no camel tracks in the snow, but tire marks on the road.
Yet the happiness they carry from afar remains the same as ever: the certainty that, in a sometimes gray world, generosity still travels in disguise, even in an eighteen-wheel trailer.