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Thursday, 02 April 2009

Juxtaposition

By Brenton "Sandy" Dickson

Weary and hungry, I sit on a granite, trailside boulder five miles from civilization. A red tail hawk soars against the blue sky above a nearby peak, floating gracefully in the gentle easterly wind. Chattering squirrels chase one another, jumping from branch to branch of overhanging trees. Then I see you.

What are you doing up there? How did you get here, you wretched plastic bag? You’re getting just what you deserve, fluttering in the noontime sunlight and speared on a broken twig of a towering oak. Being ripped asunder thirty feet above me.

Every year, tens of thousands of innocent fish and sea turtles die while ingesting you. You clog drains. You can suffocate babies. Annually, we use twelve million barrels of oil making you. You are blown indiscriminately across and along our highways and the streets of our cities. You are choking landfills. It takes 300 years to get rid of you. You are destroying the earth!

I reach into my backpack and pull out a turkey, lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich kept fresh and crisp in a recycled Crosby’s Market plastic grocery bag. Folding it carefully after lunch, I put it back with my gear. Again, I look up. You are still flapping. A white flag of surrender valiantly struggling to survive.

You line my wastebaskets. I collect sea glass and shells in you. I cram wet things into you to stop mold from spreading around the inside of my knapsack. Street people house all of their worldly possessions in you. You defend hair-dos from unexpected downpours. I put old wet paintbrushes and greasy items into you, in order to protect the rest of my rubbish.

You hold my one-year-old grandson’s spent diapers. When I am short of change, I put you over parking meters with ‘out of order’ scribbled on you. I keep you next to my bed at night when sick or after over-imbibing. You are there to help me clean up when my border collie poops on the beach. I store stuff in you. You are indispensable!

[EDITORIAL NOTE: The supply of stories is running low, so if you've had one on your mind to write, now is the time. All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. Instructions are here.]

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post

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