October Submission #1

Thrown Away

ONE

What goes through the mind of a cigarette smoker? I often watch these creatures with bewildered pity, huddled against the rain and wind near the loading dock of office buildings, by the dumpsters, propping the emergency exit open. I actually don't have anything to add to the vast ocean of logical argument against the smoking itself, and I can only imagine that small contingents of this great army of information might assault the smoker's mind as she shudders and squints through the inclemency. No, what act I find more personally offensive than the lingering, acid whiffs off her exhalations, is that of her little end-ritual. The flick. Or perhaps the drop and stomp. On summer weekends, the beach takes the bullet; In the winter, the snow bank. She turns hurriedly away from her little crime upon our shared environment.

I am not the first to express outrage at this convention, and fury at the senselessness of its custom. But what is it that permits this defacement? How is this different from tossing a bag of household garbage on the side of the highway? The scale of the butt? Its texture, which falsely seems of a cloth or paper origin (wrongly suggesting a magical disappearance through composting?) Is there misdemeanor littering and felony littering?

It seems she has considered the life-span of this synthetic projectile as thoroughly as she thinks of her own. Does she multiply the aggregate of her indiscretions upon our common pavement (a packs-worth of stubs per week, perhaps) any more accurately than the damage assessment of her innards?

TWO

While stopped at a red light at an intersection on the west side of town, I witnessed a driver in an adjacent car manically finishing off a pile of fried chicken. An orgy of sucking, audible over the idling engines. Once satiated, the driver opened his door and plopped the plate of gray bones onto the pavement below. The light turned green, and we all drove off. Except of course for the paper plate of slobbery chicken skeleton.

THREE

Whilst walking to my car in enclosed garages, I often come across little collections of auto-journey detritus: fast-food wrappers, empty cigarette packs, large fountain drinks, placed in telling relation to the oil stains and yellow space-demarcation lines; its possible to recreate the moment when the driver or passenger did a little “clean-up” before taking off, rendering the already cold, lonely car shelters all the more uncomfortable, or repulsive.

One mid-morning, I nearly stomped on a styrofoam 7-11 coffee cup on the floor in between my car and the adjacent vehicle, in which a second, identical cup still sat in clear view in the center console. Much worse are the clear plastic soda bottles, rolling down the sloped floors of the garage. And always with some remaining brown liquid sloshing around inside, which I try to reassure myself is only backwashed cola, but that in my heart I recognized all too well as a tobacco user’s amassed expectorate. Dip-spit, left for someone else to find. Find and deal with.