Sunday, October 22, 2006

THE RECYCLER a short story

She didnt know it, but the owner of the chunky silhouette being projected onto the brick wall was going to be recycled in two minutes, fifteen seconds. She looked down at the decaying piece of chicken nestling in the grease-ridden cardboard box. God that's rank, she thought, as she slung it petulantly into the gutter.
'OI! Eat it.'
The girl turned round.
'What?' she said stroppily.
'Eat the damn chicken.'
'What? Are you mad?' She started swaggering away; kissing her teeth.
'I'd stay here if I was you.' She looked round to see three men in council uniforms ; their arms folded.
'It's people like you that mean that people like us,' he gestured to the men either side of him, 'have to be dirty and smell bad when we go home to our families. It's people like you that earn us the scorn of the whole community. And worst of all you dont even know it'.
The man chuckled as the girl made a second attempt at escape, which didn't last long because two heavy-set men grabbed her and thrust her on to a rusty metal surface. She made attempts to cry for help but was silenced by the whirring of the industrial machinery, her bones cracking like a piece of discarded chicken. As the girl's life was being slowly absorbed by the everafter her final thought read: Jesus, I'm being recycled.......

2 comments:

Fizzy said...

wow pretty cruel, but also funny at the end. I liked how the author made us decide which person in the story we want to back (who we think is right) first you think that the girl is the main sort good charecter but then the men come and then they recycle her so its pretty equal.

englishguru said...

What a great example of social justice. What I like about this piece is a) how neat and concise it is (I hate it when stories go on and on and on...); and b) your vocabulary is really sophisticated (e.g. 'petulant').

Above all though, it was fun to read - and it had a great narrative twist at the end. Well done!