Landfill Blues

 Keeping with the weekly posting. 

Arrange the spectators with the old Garbage bags.

Throw hands into some days-past-due detritus.

The acrid perfume of spoiled meat.

The film of disintegrating egg shells

Coated in coarse-ground coffee grinds.

Wedging itself in the caverns of fingernails,

Tightening around the projectiles of poorly formed globs, pulled forth and let loose with the abandon of a relief pitcher, the flamethrower in the 8th, arriving to extinguish 2 on with no outs.

Let thy missile fly forth.

Let it sear the path between release and target.

Let the grounds detach from the main glob. Let them weave the air around the flight path, yesterday’s remains becoming today’s shrapnel.

Enter our villain.

My how he has earned our scorn.

Mind his shoulders, slouched forward as he shuffles next to his impassive captors. They too, will suffer.

Suffer the lesser aims of would be flamethrowers who exist more as wet matches. 

No one, as the saying goes, gets out clean.

Our villain, Eyes focused on a point some feet in front of him. A diagonal drop below the horizon. His gaze, no laser. No firmness behind it. We see him and he sees the ground, and the trash that splatters around his path forward.

Our villain, a supposed criminal mastermind,

Now detaching a banana peel smudged with grease and spattered with leftover rice grains from his neck, has committed

Something of a cardinal sin.

He has marched up to Order, removed a white glove, and slapped it squarely in the cheek.

We are not speaking in metaphors.

Order, a being of actual light and dogged principle and 

The scent of fresh cut grass, watches from the podium, rubbing its freshly manicured nails. Feigning interest. Its cheek still bearing the blemish.

What is his motive? His “rai·son d'ê·tre” if we may be so bold? A word on his past. He grew up, like most of us, a nail in a wooden board, left outside too long, weathered by elements and boots with uncompromising soles. A promised piece in the patchwork of a greater structure that never moved out of the dream realm. Or, An art installation, maybe. 

In time, the nail dislodges itself and roams the country side in search of meaning. Still, Self-sufficient, proud. A credit to the entire hardware store. At least aisle 4.

A lone nail, however, rarely finds a board. Instead, it finds itself in unsuspecting locales: a back tire, a haystack, or, as is the case with our villain: a foot.

From there, all of the credit that was due came up lacking. Words were exchanged, mistakes were made, and voila: the present. This tapestry, the custodian’s lament.

Observe now, our villain. Carrying himself with the weight of one who knows that his face will soon be covered by the juices of long-neglected vegetables. His eye will taste raw chicken.

They won’t ever be able to get the tinge of rot off of his left pant leg.

If he opens his mouth, the grit from coffee and other grindings will nestle itself between his teeth. A less-benign reminder of his childhood days coming home from the beach and the scratch of sand in his mouth.

Our villain, walking towards his reward. trash still flying in varying forms of solid mass along his path to a man wearing a plastic bag with eye and air holes cut into it waits for him. he will be stripped, and hit with a bamboo stick. Bamboo slicked with salt and mud. He will flinch as the wet slaps of flogging shred his back. Salt grazes and embeds itself in the now opening wounds. All of this accompanying the garbage that continues to pelt everyone on stage. He will shout and cry and be generally uncomfortable for the 15-18 lashings prescribed to him. Order will still be looking at its nails, fighting a growing grin soundtracked by the groans of our villain. Later, Order will don white linens and attend a symphony composed of spoon players and classically trained kazooists.

Our villain will be punished.

He will pay for his sins…

And his captors’ dry cleaning.

Justice will have been served.