Garbage by Atlantis Forester via Deviant Art

A few months ago I saw a documentary on one man’s efforts to live without plastic. The documentary also covered plastic and how it degrades. Or more accurately, doesn’t degrade. It was a shocking expose and I tried to do without plastic in my own household. It’s close to impossible. A couple of weeks ago I came across a writing prompt that was to be used as the last line of a story: A man realizes to himself that we are the villains. Several possible stories came to mind for me but this one worked it’s way to the top of my brain.

We Are The Villains

Joel unscrewed the top of a small plastic water bottle for his four year-old daughter Cindy. “I tell you, Rich, I can’t believe the garbage men are going to strike on Monday morning.” He handed the bottle to the girl. “They already get the best salaries in the city.”

Rich, one of Joel’s friends, sipped at his glass bottle of beer. “I hear ya, buddy. I should be so lucky to get paid like that.”

“I don’t know guys.” Greg said. “I mean, they take care of garbage for a living. I’d want to get paid for doing such a nasty job.” He leaned over to unwrap the plastic from a lollipop his 5 year-old, Tanner, handed to him.

The three old high school friends were at Joel’s house for a Saturday afternoon barbeque with wives and kids.

“Ann, honey,” Joel called to his wife sitting on the patio on her extruded plastic Adirondack chairs.  “The kids are running out of water. Can you bring half a case out to put in the cooler?”

“Sure. Need anything else?” She put down her red plastic cup on the table where Rich’s wife, Piper and Greg’s wife, Lexi were sitting under the plastisized table umbrella.

Joel removed the plastic wrap from the hamburgers his wife had prepped yesterday. They sizzled as they hit the hot propane fired grill. The three men stepped back as the smoke from the grill rose into the air. Joel put the top down on the grill. “The garbage companies don’t do a good job if you ask me.” He took a long pull from his can of lite beer. “I saw a show on TV last night about these miles wide floating garbage islands in the oceans. Sheesh.” He crumpled up his can and tossed it in the plastic lined, plastic garbage can next to the grill where he had thrown the plastic wrap. “They said it’s just garbage, all kinds of plastic garbage floating there. The sea animals eat that stuff and die, cause, you know. It’s not food.”

Greg sat his beer bottle down on the grill shelf and ran over to break up a fight for the extruded plastic toy car that his three year-old, Becca, wanted from his five year-old son, Tanner.

Joel turned the burgers and called over to his wife. “Honey, burgers are nearly done.”

“OK,” she said as she put the plastic wrapped cardboard from the water bottle case in the trash can. The three women got up and went into the kitchen. They came out with a stack of plastic foam plates and plastic ware and plastic tubs of potato salad and fruit salad. They put them on the plastic tablecloth over the plastic picnic table. Hamburger buns were pulled out of plastic bags and put on another plastic foam plate.

After they ate, the tablecloth, plates and plastic ware went into the trash can along with the beer cans and bottles and red plastic cups. That night it took Joel tthree plastic bags to hold all the trash from the day’s festivities.

On Monday he put out the trash, three plastic trash cans full and drove into the city to work. By Tuesday, the garbage men’s strike was evident. The streets were lined with piles of plastic trash bags so high he couldn’t see the pedestrians on the sidewalk. He looked away in disgust as huge rats roamed freely over the piles. Trash fell out of the holes in the bags the rats had chewed and blew all over the streets.  “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself over the radio in his one year old car. He wiped the dust from the plastic dashboard as he waited at a traffic light. “Where does all of the trash come from?”

That evening he saw on the news that the landfills were leaking toxins from the trash into the local water supply. State and Federal investigators were involved. Joel resolved to get water delivered as soon as he could call them in the morning. Getting ready for bed that night he told his wife about the water delivery idea and about the trash he saw every day on the way into work.

“Maybe we should make less trash,” she said as she applied night cream to her face with a disposable wipe.

He stopped dead in the middle of the bedroom to stare at her. He remembered the bags of trash from the party, his cardboard take out container from the burger joint around the corner from his office, the plastic water bottles, and bread wrappers. Joel felt sick to his stomach. We are the villains, he thought.

The End

777 Words

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