Garbage Man

         The city stank. In fact the whole world stank now, and the further you got from a city the worse it got. Living in the city is preferable, it is safer. The country smells too, maybe not as bad, but it is a lot less safe now that society has gone half to hell. Bandits and nutters roam outside the cities, and the animals are starting to get really scary out there. I am a garbage man – but then so are a lot of people now. There is nothing more important than hauling the garbage away, a long way away.


         The smell began about 5 years ago but the cause began a year or two before that. The man behind it, and the most wanted man in the world now, is a scientific genius with some sort of phobia against flies, who was deathly afraid of the maggots. He was some sort of savant in the field of nano-machines and viruses, things that work on the really small scale like that. The story goes he was away on a conference somewhere and came home to find his wife had died a few days before, the weather had been hot and he was the one who found the body. I don’t need to go into details, you can imagine the state he found her in. Anyway, after that he pretty much buried himself in his work, no one knew what he was up to. About a year after that things started to change


         In a number of cities in the U.S. they started to notice that there were hardly any flies, it was summer and there should normally be swarms of the things in in the warmer states, but there weren’t many about. They also started noticing that things were starting to smell bad from the drains, from abandoned buildings, from a lot of places that were closed in. Investigations found the usual number of dead rats, mice and all the other dead things you’d find in the sewer and underground systems but none of the bodies had any fly larvae eating them. They were just sitting there and rotting unless they were being eaten by other rodents. Something had happened to the flies. Over the next 12 months Canada and all of South America had the same thing happening.


         Those who lived in cold climates were the best off. Rats and mice flourished all over the world but the hot places were the worst. Even with our current medical technology the plague came back with a vengeance. It hit Asia, India and Central America really hard, a lot of people didn’t make it through the next 6 months. They say about half the population in some countries died - in those areas the previous country boundaries are starting to not mean much these days.


         It took a a couple of years to figure out what was going on. Something like a virus, but engineered like a machine, was killing the flies. Not just making them sick and die, I mean infecting them, multiplying and shredding them into molecule sized chunks. I read something on the net about it - once a fly was infected, it took about a minute for the fly to be gone, though the heat build-up from all that activity killed it in about 20 seconds after it started getting pulled apart from the inside. A viral machine created by this genius.


         So now there are no flies left. It killed off all of the normal-variety flies and apparently quite a few other related species as well. Some plants are beginning to die out in parts of the world as they don't have insects to pollinate them. Ecosystems are going to start breaking down. Some animals have multiplied to fill in some of the roles that flies played - in suburbia rats and mice and in some areas dogs are filling in nicely. Kittens have almost become a form of currency now, cats are starting to become very appreciated, as they were in ancient Egypt.


         Here in Australia it wasn’t too bad – only about 1 in 5 died at the worst of the plague. It is still around and still gets the odd victim, but other diseases now get more. This is where I collect the garbage. Not a glamourous job, and some people don't like us, but one of the most important jobs in what is left of society now. At least I like to think so.


         As I drive my little cart – powered on a gas they make processing garbage – away from my house I receive my first radio call of the day. It is 7am.

         "Morning Jeff, how are ya today?" It is Jane calling me from base. She is as old as the hills and about as Aussie as you can get - I like her a lot, my days tend to be better when she is on the radio.

         "Not bad Jane, how are things treating you? How are the cats going?"

         "The cats are fantastic, just had another 8 kittens. My little Galadriel is a good producer, ought to be able to trade them for plenty of supplies. Sorry to bother you so early Jeff, we've got a report of a "Code 1" at 8 Toddman avenue"

         "Thanks Jane, I'll get there straight away. Let you know how it goes when I pick up"

         "Have fun Jeff." Jane's sign-offs got less likely the lower the code number she was sending you on.

         I turn down their street, there is a bundle outside on the gutter. Stopping the cart and getting out, it is obvious the bundle is a body. A human one. That's a "Code 1". The people that live here don't contact the outside world much. It would have been reported by someone passing. There is rubbish all around, the rats and mice take care of much of it and there aren't enough of us to collect it all - not enough people to tax for the government to afford it. It's the bodies that are the most urgent, the danger of disease and all. It’s been here a day or two from the smell, and as I pull the old blanket off the top I can see the rats have been at it. Still, it could be worse. At least there aren’t any flies.