The Trash Pit

When Don had finally grown tired of digging the sun rewarded him with a shimmer of hope. Sunlight began to reflect off an object in the ground, hitting Don in the eyes. Instantly, looking away, he shouted:

“Quinner! I think I got something over here! Might be worth a few liters! Hurry!” 

Quinn jumped, startled, from a nap he was having atop some old clothes a few yards away.

“I'll be right there! Just give me a minute!" 

Quinn shouted as he sat up, then stretching and yawning. He looked down at the ground and noticed a shadow expanding, a girl stood over him.

“Always sleeping. How about you do some actual work around here, Quinner? You act as if you don’t have a mouth to feed at home." 

Quinn started to rub the sleep from his eyes, the dirt from his hands stung a bit. With teary eyes, he looked up at the girl, her tan complexion and long straight black hair looked all too familiar, it was Taylor. 

"Taylor, why are you always breaking my stones? Huh? I pay attention around here. We get three dumps a week, four if we're lucky. Most of the time its nothing but old clothes, and plastic bottles. You know the Dome keeps the good stuff.”

Taylor pursed her lips in annoyance then kicked him in the shin as a response to his rude remark. Suddenly, she smiled as if nothing ever happened.

‘So, what do you think of my shorts? Just made them, they are made of something called, ‘Denim’. Harrison got one of the old sewing machines to work over in his shop. Sewed the flowers in myself.” 

Taylor began to spin around like a ballerina.

The auburn color of her shirt illuminated brilliantly, her shorts were a baby blue, slightly loose, and slanted at the hips. They were decorated with radiant flowers the color of fuchsia and lavender, a few on the front pockets and one on each back pocket. To go along with her new shorts, she wore these old leather cowboy boots she found a couple weeks back. She cleaned them, even polished the spurs.

Quinn glared as she twirled freely, creating circular patterns on the ground in the dirt, causing dust to rise up. For a moment, he was lost in the present. The panoramic view was perfect, the sun was slowly setting on the horizon and dust swirled in all sorts of majestic patterns all around her. For a few moments, everything felt surreal. As Taylor lifted her arms, the large flannel shirt she wore gave her wings. It seemed as if she became a beautiful Phoenix dancing in the sun.

Without realizing it, Quinn’s attention immediately went to her legs. They were thick with muscle, thicker than his. Taylor had always been energetic when growing up, a natural athlete. She would race Don every morning to see who could make it out to the trash pit first. That kept her in good shape. He noticed her knees and shins were both covered in scars and began reminiscing about how the couple used to jump off trash piles onto old mattresses.

Once in a while, a mattress would have a random spring poking out and before they knew it, someone was bleeding. At the time Don was still crawling, luckily, he never experienced the horror. Harrison, being the owner of the pit, always yelled at them for playing around. Harrison warned about how dangerous it was to play in garbage. But to them, there was nothing better. Just reddish dirt accompanied by grand mountains of trash for miles in every direction. On the outskirts lay burnt and gutted skyscrapers. Every so often, if you stared long enough, you would get to see one crumble into the ground. It was the equivalent of a shooting star.

Whenever it happened they would shut their eyes tight and make a wish. One time it actually worked, Harrison had gotten Taylor a red tricycle for her fifth birthday just like she wished, three days before.

 Rubbing his shin, Quinn got up slowly, dusting off his pants. His curly, dirty blonde hair matted to his forehead from all the sweat he accumulated from sleeping in ninety-degree weather. He rubbed his fingers through it frantically, trying to make sense of it. He looked up and noticed Taylor was gone.