Friday, January 8, 2010

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A man carrying two heavy loads of garbage, unknowingly kicked a Goya frijoles de ceda can as he went. On the second kick it spun a while longer as it might never stop. The rat keeping an eye on it from under a rumpled Time magazine waited patiently. On one of the revolutions, he caught a glimpse of some remaining morsel. He could never understand why humans had leftovers. But then again, he didn't really mind, he could take care of that.

The man dumped the two bags in the huge heap of discarded mountain and walked away back to his office. The rat heard the door slam, and then boldly scurried across an ocean of debris. He arrived at the entrance of the can and peered inside to find half of a moldy bean. Probably only a month old. He crawled in and nabbed it with his mouth and as he crawled backwards, he heard the buzzing. Annoyed by her presence, the fly landed on the edge of the rim of the sharp can. The rat hated the omnipresence her wings and her multi-vision gave her. But he had beaten her once again. The rat briskly sprinted away through the crowds of plastic bottles and shards of glass that seemed to extend into infinity in their miniscule molecules sparkling throughout the garbage dump floor.

Everyday and every hour the shape of the valleys of miscellaneous goo changed. Things that once were shiny and new had quickly reached its potential and now found themselves with the other one-time use items of society, the condoms, Christmas trees, diapers, wrappers, and bestsellers of six months ago. The rapid disintegration and cancer-like growth of the Pangaea heap that began every week was unwrapped and twisted, separated and rebuilt to change the landscape. The terrain of garbage regulars grew and dwindled changing and moving as to seem almost liquid, moving like waves as they crashed against its weak yet effective boundary. The fence was pretty shabby, but it was reinforced by a peculiar looking ivy that grew all around it. Seeing that it worked to their advantage, the dump management tried to keep the ivy at bay by shearing it at least every two days. Contained, it helped, but if it wasn't it could have very unproductive effects. In a way, it seemed to feed off the moisture of the garbage, the alcohol that spilled from brown and amber bottles and the fermented drops of orange juice and milk leaking from the bottom of their squashed containers.

The fly flew a few feet up, startled from the rat's sudden exit, and then lowered back down on the same can. Her kaleidoscopic view saw the rat's hindquarters and scaly tale whip back and forth flagellaicly as he wriggled inside the heap. The fly hovered for a bit, deciding if she should follow or not. Just then she saw something moving near a puddle the color of kids dirty water coloring water with glistening presence of swirls of oil on the East side of the dump near the fence. Landing on a hairless handle of a mop, she sat and observed. For a second she thought that her sight had deceived her but she was patient. She stared intently at the area near the small black lake. In a game of "what doesn't belong," she recognized the slimy shimmery trail and followed it to find the banana slug, momentarily camouflaged on a neon yellow 1980s jacket. For a slug, it contracted and stretched pretty quickly for a slug. Such an animal, although usually thought of as filthy, would be right at home. But banana slugs preferred a less man-made mess and more of a dewy floor of a forest with shading from the sun. The fly had no schedules or time to keep up with and could potentially sit there and watch this bright visitor but she preferred to haunt the rat. As she took to the sky, she noticed the land of incoming trash being molded into and bull dozed into submission. Reverse beeping, and loud plume-smoke of strength from the machines sculpting a newly formed mountain. From this she deduced that the rat would have moved south, toward the spider like, leggy, kiosk.

The rat was so predictable. It was done with the moldy bean and had snagged a delectable looking moldy peach. It was nibbling on it furiously. Violently tearing at the bruised purple meat, not caring if his whiskers were dirtied...

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