Gentleman of the Refuse

The streets are full of trash or at least, so they say.  It has been piling up gradually for at least a decade or two or however long ago it has been since the city was good and not completely ruined.  Long ago, everything was nice and things were simpler.  The city was exactly as you remember it; a model of perfection without any unsightly blemishes that are often so easily forgotten.  It was all just so… not like it is today.  Sprawling piles of filth now stretch far as the eye can see, encroaching over both sidewalk and pavement alike until there is little room left for either to be used as intended.  There are even mountains of trash that reach heights that rival the skyscrapers.  Can you imagine the stench?  A putrid combination of all of the worst smells; excrement and decay swirling through the air and lingering like fog on a damp morning.  An otherworldly odor that will not wash out.  Well, not at least until this trash problem is sorted, of course.

And yet, here’s the thing that I don't quite understand, I’ve never seen anything like what they describe.  This is my home.  I walk these streets every single day and not once can I remember it being as bad as the pictures being painted.  Sure, every community has its share of faults, but these wild, warped misrepresentations of near incalculable proportion are pure fabrication.

A fire rages within.  It burns with an intensity that can no longer be contained or controlled; ravenous and wild, the flames of my anger dance to a symphony from some unknown source.  Is it a manifestation of some evil force bending my will to enact its dastardly deeds?  Or do I just simply lack the same disdain for my fellow humanity as some?  At this point, the trash that they wish to purge from the streets is barely even thinly veiled.  The truth is that I am the trash of which they speak.  You likely are as well.  And if you think that you don’t fit the criteria for removal.  Eventually, you will.