THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

From the Editors

Our city-issued street recycling bin has a large, obnoxious hole in its side.  Like a wolf-fanged cavern, all cardboard that enters gets caught in its crooked maw. The hole is fond of cheerio boxes and wary of intruders. 

WHIRR WHIRR BUZZ GRRR the one clawed truck rumbles and shumbles over. Our little bin shakes and stirs and the cardboard nestles in to stay safe. It came into our lives like this, like some unseemly ghost that has always already been there. The hole that was never anything but always just a hole.

We’ve recently had this dream where the city has taken note of the hole, and by some hyper efficient miracle of municipal goodwill, the waste receptacle is replaced without our even having to lift so much a cheerio.

But we don’t live on Power, and Hope’s a few blocks away.

Our cheerio boxes remain undealt with, held close by the bin. If you want anything done around here, you gotta call. 

Offices close when we ring, dictate their schedules by our dial tone. The machine tells us to call another machine, but we have to listen twice to hear the number right. You must show up in person. Bring the serial # of the broken bin. 

They say… There is no bin. Never has been.