Shirley Golden, 06 Dec '12

A Space of Waste

Joe kills the clattering engine. The bristles circle to a halt. Soon shoppers will emerge with the latest surge of litter.
        He scrambles from the sweeper and leans against its paint-peeled frame, woozy from last night's boozing. He clutches his gut and waits for the nausea to pass. He straightens and forces open gummed eyes.
        On the frozen pavement, he sees a dash of colour. It's an object retreating on cosmological Red Shift, expanding beyond his scope. He takes deep breaths to calm his spinning head before bending to grasp it. It's strangely heavy, the surface puckered like a shrunken crisp bag. He peers at foreign writing but can't identify the letters. The photo is a joke hologram - the lad has pointy features, head too big for cola-cubed shoulders, and the salute is performed by a three digit deformity.
        Joe grins. It's kind of nifty. He shoves it in his pocket, and wipes his hand down his jeans. Yawning, he clambers back into the cab.

                                                                                        ~

        In the zenith, far above Joe's comprehension, among the ever-present stars, a craft hovers. At the helm, Ridley grins, despite a woolly head from the previous night's celebrations. Graduation from cosmos flight school, and now his first solo jaunt in Atropos V.
        With satisfaction, he ejected his student pass along with the space waste. He hums and presses the throttle to escape this backwater dumping base.