It was scheduled from 5 pm to 5 am for veryone in the neighborhood to drop their garbage off. They threw away trash, sometimes unused goods and sometimes a dead cat. At 6.30 in the morning, the garbage truck would come to haul them. Nobody cared about the garbage. No one had ever taken back their goods and no any single person even bothered to bury the dead cat. No one but a madman.
A madman was always waiting by the dump. As if he waited for the plane arrival, he sat beneath the tree and watched everything got dumped. If the plastic bag was soggy and flabby, then it would be scrap or peels. If it was light and rattled, then it would contain plastics or cans. And if it was heavy and puffed, then it would be stuffed by unused goods which most of the times were clothes. The interesting part was how they were dumped. The plastic bags were tossed away that you could see them fly for a few seconds before landing inside the bin, but sometimes the aim was amiss so it rolled back to the owner.
The madman climbed up the bin and jumped down. He started to open and sort the plastic bags. One by one, he discreetly removed what inside the bags. He didn’t go through the soggy bags so he put them away and stacked them in one space. And when the rumble approached, he left promptly. He ensured that no one caught him picking up the trash.
Once, a rag picker came while he was rummaging through the clothes. The rag picker dragged him by his arm and tossed the cans over him. He remembered that day, the woman glared at him as she seized the clothes. When someone dropped off his trash, the madman would hide behind the tree and waited until that person left, just to make sure he would not throw stone at him. When kids walked pass the dump, he would go far away from them so they would not ridicule him. The madman didn’t mean any harm but everybody would react adversely toward him. Every time, they glanced at each other and put their index fingers diagonally on their forehead.
It was a dull neighborhood for the inmates were all intensely proper and well-born that everybody was so vain of their good looks and elegant accomplishment. The madman too, was well-born. He wore silk and only sat on a big chair. He unwound everyday at a good place, defenitely not a dump. A clean fragrant room. He stood with a glass among the crowd, spoke eloquently. Then when he finished his sermon, he would release the doves and threw the glitter. The crowd fancied him as they clustered around him for handshake. The madman thought praise and honor lasted unbroken but he met adieu. His people suddenly loathed him. They hissed up his entire existence and eliminated him from his throne.
He was once the epitome of elegant man but now he was only a madman.
The madman woke up from the deepest day dream. He looked at the sky, the burnt leaf fell from its branch. Poor thing. A tiny creature danced and floated in the air, rejoicing in its sweet life. When its wings could no longer flap, gently it glided down and rested upon the branch. The man condemned himself for a dreadfully sad bellows the wind sent him. His heart shrieked of anguish reminiscing the old days.
He screamed for the dearest life.
The madman thought that nobody would ever care a straw about his entity before he realized someone had kept an eye for him. Only three meters ahead, there stood a keen-sight being. Her hair waved as the wind blew it in good manner. He was instinctively certain that the girl across the road was looking at him but he had never looked back into one’s eyes after becoming mad. His chest thumped but the girl disappeared with the heavy breath of the truck.
The next morning was not a surprise for the madman, the same girl stood right before him knitting her brows in deep thought. “What are you?” she asked. Her tone was bland. The curiosity inside her could not win over the intensity of disquiet his brain produced that his gaze only lingered upon her pair of knee-high purple socks.
Her rudeness didn’t nettle him but rather a surge for him. He wished he could answer her or at least stutter a word but it had been a long time since a living soul talked to him, so he remained silent. By degrees, the girl grew aware that her presence had created some sort of intimidation for him. There the girl tried to debunk the unfortunate prejudice he had for outsider by a simple smile but full of sincerity.
“It doesn’t matter, Sir. Really, truly.” She consoled.
The madman encouraged himself to look as close as he dared. After noticing the pale small face of hers, he lowered his glance. Whilst the madman stood still, the little girl took something out of her bag. There appeared a lunch box and an average-size strawberry jar from her hand.
“Mama didn’t pack them for me. I do it for you.”
There is a moment of waiting. The madman was still motionless. He was not thinking. He was not reflecting. He was just amazed that his heart was suddenly filled with tenderness. Nothing could beat the feeling he now had as if the frantic solitude of his life had been abruptly repelled apart.
“These tiny creatures are good ones. They didn’t bite and will keep you company.”
The madman took both things. Not to his expectation, the jar was not filled by strawberry jam and he noticed a very tiny pit on the lid. They are six-legged red insects crawled around a leaf.
They look crowded. Should I give one more pit.
The madman intended to speak his mind but when he looked, her purple wrapped legs had already taken steps out of the dump waving her hand.
“I’ll come over a bit later.” She shouted approvingly.
The madman was still fascinated by the feeling of receiving something because he only used to rummage through the dirty stink trash. He had always implored for a good dream and now he did not want to wake up. The unworthy piece of him had been watered by a shower of blessings the droplets sent him. He came back to sit beneath the tree paying attention to the tiny creatures and decided not to dig into the trash.
The madman recalled the days of keen and blind ambitions when he was an elegant man. When he began his speech, the limelight would follow him around and he would honk loudly his first two words, “Dear people” as he lifted his right arm. Nobody would dare to interrupt him. His people admired him for his eloquence and fashion and he knew likewise their admiration. He was framed with fame until one mistake shattered him apart. He thought no one would ever find the false truth he had been buried long time ago. But someone shoved it out and it was no longer a mere matter of eminence but it was a matter of his life.
No one pitied him, even before he could build his defense, he was thrown out of the town.
He cursed his luck aloud.
Any man who was a man could travel alone, one said. So he walked miles away and found a shady tree near the garbage dump. The neighborhood was a place where well-dressed human beings lived in. Their faces were stamped with icy looks and expression of mortal pride. He now was named madman and had been despised and denounced by nearly everyone there.
He thought he would go lifeless until the death touched him, then he met the owner of a pair of purple socks who to his surprise now was standing regarding him.
“Have you any pain, Sir?” she asked abruptly with an unwonted look.
Sparks kindled in her eyes which radiate a glimpse of color to her pale face. She spoke her bluntness with a placid tone in modest way. He was examining the pale frame of hers and for the first time he read the expression of loneliness and pain from her face.
“I do have Sir. Here.” She answered her own question, laying her hand on her heart.
“When I lift Kitty up in my arms, she didn’t purr because she’s dead and it hurts me.” The girl glanced at the madman, a soft feeling crept into his heart.
“But mama told me every living thing will come to an end and there is no way to avoid it. Kitty meets her end beneath mama’s bed. I wanted to give her a funeral but mama forbids me to go out at night, so mama do it for me instead.”
She leant her back against the wood. Her eyes were intently fixed upon the sky, attracted to the tiny creature dancing in the air. The madman suddenly felt sorry for her. He knew that no grown ups who are fond of luxury would give a little heart to kitty. Slowly its paws would be frozen while human wrapped its body in dirty cloth. Every lower creature is drawn into one fate. And it is here.
“Do you know, Sir?” Her eyes had not been diverted from the view. “If a mouse eats your nail clippings, it will turn into a human.”
“Isn’t odd Sir? Why is it only happened to mouse?” she raised her tone as if surprised at her own question.
“It is odd. But not that odd.”
His shoulder shivered reacting to his uttered words. It was the first time he could hear his voice. It threw him into panic. He turned his face to the side and found the girl was looking straight at him with a smile. This time the shivering came violently upon his body. He looked away and ran making quite a distance from the girl in such an angst he had never experienced. The moment he stopped shivering, he realized what a foolish creature he is.
Why am I running away?
When he looked back, the girl walked the opposite way waving her goodbye.
Maybe it was a dream or perhaps he really became mad but it went so fast that only memory left. He counted the days, he counted four times the dancing creature had been going back and forth upon the tree which meant it had been four days since the girl left. And she never appeared before his eyes anymore. He waited wishing the purple wrapped legs would stand across the garbage dump but no one was there. Others would never stand there for any reason. It was strange feeling to wait someone whose name he didn’t even know. He had never waited for somebody even before becoming mad.
The next day he was sure of himself becoming mad. He stopped rummaging through the garbage.
The dancing creature hurriedly hid its tiny body inside the tree hollow as the raindrops hitting the ground. Umbrellas were running through the heavy rain and the garbage bags were swallowing the water. Things accumulated, the madman climbed up the bin and threw his weakened body in. He shouted something, really loud, but the heavy downpour had it unheard.
When the rain stopped, the dark afternoon had gone and it never came back.
