SCRAPS
FICTION
Somewhere, miles away, a splotch of blue paint sits in a towering landfill alongside a faded brown loveseat with torn ligaments, stale birthday cake frosting, moldy strawberry heads, and a pair of movie theater glasses, snapped into three parts.
A heavy-duty CAT machine heaves, huffs and wheezes as it pushes its old, sore body forward over infinite hills of leftovers such as these, just as it has for 24 hours a day, every day for the past 12 years. Still in forward motion, the operator of the truck looks back over his right shoulder at the crescent moon in the sky. Following the moon’s gaze down the hill to the land below them both, the operator’s eyes meet that of a new parade of trucks, churning forward just as his own machine does, bringing hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh leftovers to the landfill’s rolling hills, which he will undoubtedly be tasked with hauling.
Meanwhile, the blue paint makes contact with the machine’s wheel, which stands taller than the average human, and completes a total of three rhythmic rotations. The gummy blue material pulls and stretches around the wheel, and sometimes breaks at points where it meets the sharp edge of a Coca Cola can, or a dull kitchen knife on the landfill floor.
Just as a wave would behave as it collides with the shore, the discarded paint finally gathers enough centripetal motion to fly off of the wheel and break in all directions,. A large portion of the blue substance finds a home on the machine’s radiator, melting against the heat and plugging its sweating copper tubes. Now having no means of achieving temperature homeostasis, the engine overheats and comes to a drastic and heart-dropping ‘halt’ not five minutes later.
“Fuck!” the operator curses. Before addressing the problem, he spends a moment slowly laying his warm forehead against the top of the steering wheel, spreading his palms and fingers wide across his sore knees in a gesture that seems to be the exact opposite of a communion. After a few shallow breaths, he jumps out of the vehicle as the torn soles of his boots meet the pile of waste. The sight of the visible steel toe that protects his left three digits reminds him to set aside money in his paycheck, so, in a few months’ time, and after hundreds of hours of work, he can afford a new pair.
Standing at the top of the small mountain, he waves to the manager at the bottom. Operation ceases for exactly two hours while the two men steadily replace the tubes. One by one, practiced hand in practiced hand, the men loosen screws and pull paint-covered tubes out of the radiator. They methodically reposition new tubes, turning the new screws with meticulous care and attention. Not a word is exchanged between the men once the work has begun.
Once the radiator is fixed, the bright, shining copper of the new tubes appearing flashy against the gritty side of the truck, the men stand back and admire their work. Though annoyed at the task, the men are proud of what they have done. A tired handshake is exchanged. The right side of the operator’s swollen cheek even pulls his mouth into a small, but significant, smile.
Sweat is wiped from the men’s foreheads and palms with a spare rag. The machine rejoins its position in the flock of heaving trucks mowing garbage like grass. Work resumes, equally illuminated by the moon’s soft glow and the harsh one of fluorescent headlights.
Fifteen miles away, in a small home that sits under the light of the same crescent moon, now gently shifted in the sky, a father arrives home to his daughters exactly two hours late. The young girls are deep in their separate dreamworlds, but still feel a small kiss on the forehead somewhere deep within their souls. In the next room over, a woman tosses in restless sleep, but finally drifts into a heavy slumber when a familiar weight finds its place directly next to her in the night. In her dreams, she smells shampoo, toothpaste, and, strangely, she thinks, the smallest hint of acrylic paint.
