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Zoë Westhof posted a photo showing a garbage dump and asked her readers what story it might tell. Garbage always being a stimulant on my imagination I immediately set to work. Only aftgerwards I noticed the stories by Jeb and Ryan, both developing a story in which time and the passing of it plays a dominant role. So what has garbage to do with time?
Photo: ©1962 E. Cordes
Here is my Story:
Driving to the garbage dump was his highlight of the week. Driving there with his uncle, sitting in the passenger seat, enjoying every single second. The back seats of the old Ford removed, the loading space packed with paper, cardboard and plastic waste, the smelly barrels with entrails of fish in the trailer behind the car.
A man’s world. Photo: ©1963 E. CordesHe was so small he had to raise his head to look out of the car window. No child car seat, not even a safety belt. This was a man’s world.
To open the car door instantly meant to wrestle for breath. The smoke of burning dump, the stench of rotten fish, the sound of the bulldozer and men shouting their dense jokes at each other, wearing enormous work gloves.
That had been a man’s world and time was moving much faster than the old Ford driving home from the garbage dump. The Ford itself ending on some garbage dump, the garbage dump ending as a housing estate, that boy somehow becoming me.
Zoe 2:04 am on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
Detlef,
I love how you took a little story and effortlessly tied it into a “big picture” at the end. The imagery is excellent!
Ryan 6:02 am on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
For some reason that vision of ‘enormous working gloves’ really stands out in my mind….
Anyway, that was really cool. Makes me think about my current situation where I’m trying to get rid of all my junk before I move. Time has a way of making junk pile up unnoticed.
Detlef 9:31 am on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
Thank you Zoë,
how nice of you to notice. I wanted to create something like a very fast zoom out in space and time from the 1962 garbage dump to blue planet earth floating in space. Couldn’t make that happen here, stopped at my own self.
Thank you for your inspiring photo prompt that made this happen!
Detlef 9:38 am on February 17, 2009 Permalink |
Hi Ryan,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. Firefighter gloves! The firefighter being the ultimate man in the man’s world for me as a kid.
Time seems to be connected with junk: all those dusty attics in Hollywood productions.