Hot-Box Dumpster

Chapter 1 – The Caterpillar

“All that is gold does not glitter,
         Not all who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
         Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
         — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

         The sky above is a menacing slate grey; thick fog dims with encroaching night. In the alleyway below, a girl huddles beneath a sheltering cocoon of newspapers, framed by brick boundaries on three sides. Her head pillowed upon her arm, she closes her eyes. She shivers despite her layers of clothing and pulls her knees closer to her chest. The trembling slowly fades.

         Just outside, shoppers are rushing throughout the city, desperate to finish their errands and make it home before night fall. The city begins to dream as the streets are left abandoned to the ghosts and the forgotten. The cold settles in as billowing clouds of steam rise from sewer grates. Silver in the fading light of day, it swirls and merges with the fog of the night. In the streets it lingers and pools creating a subtle miasma which chokes the spirit, yet in the alleyway it enfolds the girl with a thin veil of warmth.

         Here in her nest, the roar of cars, the random metallic crashes, and the grinding scrape of metal on stone are muted, drowned beneath the ever-present din of the newspaper presses next door. Three shifts work around the clock; the presses never stop, but produce a bewildering variety of weekly advertisements, grocery circulars, mass mailings, and a daily newspaper. Invisible to the workers and unknown to the building, the girl sleeps hidden behind an old blue dumpster.

         Although the paint on the dumpster is chipped and crazed from years of abuse, the metal itself is still essentially intact. Large patches of rust grow like mould over the sides and along the bent and damaged dumpster lid. Inside ruptured garbage bags, spilling their sticky contents, force the lid ajar. The dumpster is surrounded by bundled newspapers decaying at the centre, turning black and flaking away, as if slowly eaten by invisible flames. The ground is matted with yellowing newsprint, smeared with grey ink. The smell of rot creeps pervasively from the dumpster, mingling with the smell of the sewers.

         Under her cover of newspaper, the girl moves restlessly. The papers settle limply; the words they once bore have long since melted from the paper. Suddenly, with a muffled cry, she wakes with a start, some nightmare disturbing her uncomfortable slumber. The papers are dislodged and tumble to the grate, revealing her shaking body. She is tiny, a short young woman with a once-boyish body; she now resembles a withered plant, disregarded and starved. Her hands, with skin stretched too tightly across her bones, are grimy and smeared with foul black gunk. Her tangled dark hair hangs in greasy irregular clumps across her face and sticks out at odd angles from her head. Her eyes, sunken in the hollows of her skull, are a very dark blue, almost purple. They are too bright for her pale skin, her faded-grey surroundings.

         She reaches for her cache of food, two McDonald’s bags half translucent with cooled grease stains, holding partly-eaten meals. She begins to subdue the gnawing pain of hunger for a bit - then realizes she has more pressing problems. She is not alone.

         She gazes unerringly towards the entrance where, framed between the wall and dumpster, a large man stands. A golden haze coalesces around him; the fog, set aflame by the streetlight beyond, flickers erratically. He pauses for a moment, surveying the scene while lighting a cigarette. A gold-plated lighter glints in his hands, a flash of colour and movement against the grimy background.

         The man appears to advance jerkily towards her in the strobing light. His face, glimpsed momentarily, seems contorted, fixed somewhere between a sneer and a grimace. The girl rises with surprising grace to a half-crouch, immediately fixing her liquid eyes on him with a feral intensity. She does not – quite – hiss at him, but she is as defiant as any confronted alley-cat.

         Her eyes become attuned to the night and as the man approaches, it is clear that although he is tall and fairly fit, he is also aged. His solid frame is softened and his broad shoulders stoop forward; his eyes remain hidden behind wire-framed glasses. He moves with distaste as he picks a path towards her.

         He wears a suit of dark grey wool, which blends easily with the shadows, but the obvious quality of its tailoring is as alien to its current surroundings as its owner. Light gleams menacingly from his golden ring, watch, and tie clip.

         In a flurry of filthy, layered skirts, the girl launches herself to her feet, snarling at the intruder, “Who the hell are you?”

         The man never stops his gradual approach, unfazed by her sudden movement. “I expect, given your situation, that you would prefer to avoid names,” he says, his voice smooth and knowing.

         “What the fuck do you mean by that?” Delicate, long-fingered hands clench into filthy fists; the man is at least a foot taller than her – however, the girl stands her ground like a rebellious child.

         “Easy now,” the man says as he paces closer, “I have heard from some reputable sources that you have complete amnesia and – for several crucial reasons – I need to confirm that.” He smiles faintly, thin lips stretching over gleaming white teeth. “In that context, my name is rather irrelevant. Call me whatever you choose.”

         “Fine,” the girl spits, “I’ll call you Asshole, ‘cause that’s what you are. Get the fuck away from me.”

         He frowns, worry lines deepening in his brow, but he ploughs on heedlessly, saying, “Is such crude language really necessary?”

         “Fuck you, who the fuck are you, are you a cop?” The girl’s hands clench and relax, as if grasping for something unreachable, but her muscles stay bunched, ready for action.

         “What? No,” the man says, his carefully neutral voice suddenly betraying confusion. “No,” he repeats, more firmly, “I’m not involved with law enforcement. I just have two questions for you, and a--”

         “I don’t do questions,” she says sullenly. She is still poised for flight and her eyes are wary.

         The smoothness is back in his voice as the man speaks again: “That’s because you can’t, isn’t it? You don’t remember anything about who you used to be.” The smoke dangles forgotten from the fingers of his left hand, which still loosely holds his lighter.

         “Bullshit. Listen, Asshole, I just don’t want to be your new soft story about ‘the evils of homelessness’, So go tape some waterskiing dog or something and leave me alone.” The man is between the girl and the alleyway’s only exit. She is trapped here, unless he leaves – or drops his guard for long enough.

         “I’m not a journalist, either,” the man in grey says quietly.

         “Cop. Reporter. Sadist or thug. I don’t give a fuck what you are or aren’t. Maybe I haven’t made myself clear – I am speaking English, right? – I. Want. You. To. Go. Away.”

         “Look, child, I am trying to be reasonable here. I have to know if you have, in fact, completely forgotten your former life. Tell me anything – any personal fact you truly remember – and I will leave and return to my home. Believe me, I’d like to.” He steps forward again, past the dumpster, into the scattered mass of papers that make up her nest. “Have you severed yourself from your past completely? Who are you? Do you know?”

         The girl does not – quite – meet his gaze. There is a brief pause, and then the man says, “The scars on your forearms, when did you acquire them? That must have been momentous.” His square jaw tenses as he glances at her arms – currently hidden beneath a dulled once-orange sweatshirt.

         The girl seems to fold in on herself, left hand holding her right arm close to her body. She drops her gaze; greasy hair falls forward over her face, covering the glance her liquid blue eyes make towards her stashed food. “I-” she begins; the man steps forward again, eagerly, closing the last few paces between them.

         Suddenly, the girl looks up, locking stares with the grey man. She shoves past him, jarring him out of her path as she snarls, “I’m not telling you shit.”

         While the man is off-balance, she flees. Past the dumpster, into the haze of the dying streetlight, off into the gathering darkness, the girl sprints away from her former shelter. She abandons it as thoroughly as a snake abandons its shed skin, as a butterfly abandons its cocoon.

         She hears him call to her as she plunges into the night, but she ignores it. She runs off blindly; the sound of horns echoes in her wake, but in the fog, she is quickly forgotten – just another ghost haunting the greying city.

On To Chapter 2!

"Hot-Box Dumpster: The Fading City"