The compost bag was round and throbbing gently with life. It seemed to only take encouragement from the grip of Sarah’s fingers on its neck, and oozed affectionately at her as she dragged it to the shed.
Slam, bam went the door. Thud, scrape went the boxes.
Lid open. Woooosh! Goodbye compost, gone forever! Live somewhere else.
Sort sort drop sort drop sort drop sort sort drop. Fare thee well, recycling, in parts both paper and plastic and or metal and or glass! May you be repurposed in peace – although Sarah had the sneaking suspicion she’d heard that they just set it all on fire somewhere far away.
Lid open.
“Oh fucking hell. Piss. Shit. Goddamnit. Who does that?”
And this was the most rhetorical question of all, because Sarah knew exactly who did that.
Above her he lurked. Maker of muffled footsteps. The 2 AM shuffler. The One Who Flushes.
Bruce.
Angels, gods and demons, she cursed him.
The garbage can was full.
Full was such a small word. Overfull was too derivative.
Overflowing would do nicely.
What even WAS all that stuff? Packaging and wrapping and pizza boxes and pounds of mashed up what-looked-like-aluminum-foil and ham bones and wood shavings and a crumpled up ripped t-shirt and half a box of snotty Kleenex and a deflated basketball and a box of broken dog treats.
Bruce didn’t own a dog.
Sweet jesus, and that was just the top layer. What the hell. What the everfucking hell.
As she stood there, garbage bag held haplessly in hand, eyes roaming for an empty spot in the can, Sarah was counting. Counting weeks, counting months, counting trucks.
Not once. Not one time in the two years she’d lived beneath him. Not ever once had this not happened.
The battle was resolved in the usual manner – half the bag was crammed into the can, half the bag was surreptitiously sneaked into three unsuspecting neighbors’ cans – but the war was not ended.
Sarah had begun to think. This is normal and fine thing for a human to do, as long as you don’t point it at anyone else. Which she was.
On Wednesday, there was a knock on her door. On the other side of the knock was a Bruce.
“Yes?” said Sarah, eventually.
“Hi,” said Bruce.
“Oh.”
She opened the door and looked up at Bruce. He stood well over six feet, but in a way that was impossible to be intimidated by. He looked like a scarecrow’s emaciated and impoverished cousin. His wrists were almost as thin as his fingers.
“Uh…” he began, and continued in this vein for some time. His sentences had a habit of starting before they formed. “Well…it’s…not to be a bother, but….uh…. Well…there’s a lock on the garbage can.”
“Oh!” said Sarah. “Yes, that was me. Raccoons got into it last week.”
“Oooh. Uh, did you uhm. Did you really need… a padlock?”
“They’re very dextrous, can break into just about anything that doesn’t need a key. Can’t be too careful. I’ll give you a copy.”
“Oh! Thanks.”
They stood there.
“I’ll give you a copy when it’s made,” said Sarah patiently. “I’ve got to go visit the locksmith.”
“Ooooh,” said Bruce. “Ah. Sorry. Thanks. Sorry. Thanks. See you.”
He shuffled off.
Sarah gloated for a few hours, then snuck off to check the shed.
The lock showed some half-hearted signs of tugging, but the chain was well affixed. Excellent.
The same couldn’t be said of the recycling bins. Mounds rose out of them. Highly unselective mounds.
“Ssssshit,” she whispered. Adaptation. Well, she could adapt too.
So she hid the recycling bins under the porch.
On Thursday, there was a knock at her door. Sarah carefully ignored it and avoided making any and all noises for the rest of the day, which she spent smiling softly to herself. Upstairs all was quiet, save for the odd crunching footstep and a faint sob.
On Friday, the garbage went out, just before pickup.
Extremely just before pickup. Five minutes before the truck stopped in front of the building, the chain was removed. Thirty seconds afterwards, it was reapplied.
On Saturday, Sarah’s door was hammered on for ten minutes straight, accompanied by faint but heart-rending sobs, which she cherished deeply.
On Sunday, the compost bin, in a show of pure desperation, had four pizza boxes crammed into it. Sarah bought a chain for it too.
“Raccoons,” she said to herself. “Obviously.”
On Monday, there was no sound at all.
On Tuesday, there was no sound at all.
On Wednesday, there was no sound at all.
On Thursday, there was no sound at all.
On Friday, Sarah executed the fine-timed garbage pickup, patted herself on the back, put everything away, and stopped at her door.
Something smelled.
Was he hoarding up there? Hell, if she’d driven him to that, maybe she could get the landlord to boot him entirely. Worth a try!
The smell grew stronger up the staircase. Thicker. Foggier.
She knocked. The sound was smothered against the doorframe.
“Bruce?”
The door groaned.
“You there? There’s a smell downstairs.”
Knock. Knock. Thump thump.
Nothing but the busy stillness of fermenting air.
Sarah kicked the door once as three things gave way: her patience, the doorframe, and the floor of Bruce’s apartment, which was directly above her own.
It had been very compacted inside Bruce’s place. It was eager to fill new lands.
It was thick and damp and crumby and oozing, all at once, all in different places. And no matter where you clawed, it wouldn’t give way.
Sarah clawed anyways, clawed like a mountain lion. She clawed and clawed and wished she could scream without letting whatever was stuck on her face into her mouth and clawed and clawed and was dragged out of her apartment by her leg and the noble efforts of three men in sanitation overalls.
“Thanks,” she spat out, wiping the Styrofoam from her lips.
“The garbageman is dead,” they told her.
“Sorry?”
“The garbageman is dead,” they told her. They were triplets, and they were all very beautiful in the face and body – fine, strong bones that lay close to the skin, and soft eyes that loved unconditionally. “Who will consume now? Who will take upon themselves the task of accepting the waste of our labours? Who will buy expensive toys and discard them? Who will eat the food of six people? Who will recycle all the soda cans we stock upon our shelves? The garbageman did and now the garbageman is dead. Without garbage, the circle of consumption is stalled, as an axle knee-deep in snow.”
And they bowed before her as one.
“Garbagewoman,” they said.
“Garbagewoman,” they said.
“Garbagewomen,” they said.
And then they turned on their heels and walked for the door.
“What about my apartment?” asked Sarah.
“Best get shoveling,” they said. And were gone.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine.” She could do this. Bag it all. Sort it. Needed to sort it first.
Right. Sort it first. Then bag it. Then put it out in the shed.
Then she wondered where the key to the garbage can might be, and she started swearing and never stopped.