Down by the Bank II

Episode 2: The Stuff

This is about things I saw down by the bank. I threatened a series, so here goes.

Down by the bank, there was a bunch of stuff in neat piles. What? How could that be? It’s true. Scraps of tired metal, pieces of confused wood and sealed plastic tubs that looked like dirty faces. All in their place. Lots of them! They didn’t get there on their own. No tracks in the snow. They’d been there awhile, entrenched within the no man’s land between the railway tracks and the bank – between unnatural and natural.

What was all this stuff? It was right on the edge, threatening to tumble down at any minute. What a place to be! I looked up at the evaporator plant. I looked back at the stuff. I looked up at the evaporator plant. I looked back at the stuff. How could this be? I imagined a gathering of important men, movers and shakers of the evaporating plant. I suggest their conversation as follows:

What are we going to do with it?

Get rid of it!

How?

Throw it out!

Where?

Down by the bank!

Is there room?

There’s always room!

Let’s get busy!

Now the stuff sits awkwardly at the edge, waiting in the snow – teetering on the brink. A slight push – the stuff rolls down out of sight, lost among the snakes’ nest of thirsty trees and wrestling railroad ties. That was their plan all along: wait for someone else to do their dirty work for them. It would be a long wait. I didn’t have time for that. It’s their stuff! I got out of there, before something happened.

That was the situation, down by the bank – their stuff waiting to roll over nature.