One Man's Trash

Snaggletooth clambered up the side of the stone well. It’s lip stood a full foot above his head. The rocks were slippery with moss and the occasional gooey red mushroom. He stood barefoot on the edge and brushed the pine needles and dirt off his shirt and trousers. They might appear well worn and mismatched, stitched together from discarded clothing, but he kept them clean.

The brownie grinned, his lips the color of tree bark. They stretched tight over a mouth full of bright white shards set in uneven rows and at odd angles. A mop of curly chestnut hair covered his head and trailed down the sides of his face to join a thick beard. A dense tangle of hair covered the dark skin of his arms, his hands on his hips.

Snaggletooth’s quick brown eyes darted back and forth surveying his property. Not much was left of it. The one room cabin was long abandoned and, after an unfortunate fire, all its surviving wooden timbers had rotted and returned to the earth. The remaining stone floor sat in stark contrast to the ground around it. He swept it nightly so no leaves or dirt congregated upon it.

The fireplace still stood and the chimney as well, a lone column pointing skyward. The gardens were long gone, overtaken by the forest that surrounded them. The chicken pen, the goat shed, the rabbit hutch...all gone. The fat house cat, who he had been quite fond of…long gone. The woman was gone too.

Snaggletooth had once gone by another name, but he couldn’t remember it now. The memory of that lifetime was as dried up as the well he stood upon. He’d get flashes of it sometimes, like raindrops hitting the sand at the bottom. A woman singing while she gathered herbs, a comfy box with an old quilt by the fireplace, a warm bowl of milk and honey left on the windowsill.

Her soul had moved on, as humans do, and he had remained, as faeries do. Snaggletooth had never been without a family. He had come to this land on a ship with the woman. She was the last of her line and, after she was gone, he continued to dutifully tend to her home. Despite his best efforts, the small farm began to deteriorate, and with it, so did he. Brownies were not meant to be without families.

Years passed and he supposed he went a bit mad. Large parts of the forest were cut down. Humans built rows of houses on one side of the remaining woods, but none of their families called to him. A park was built on the other side of the woods. Many humans came to visit and their little ones played on the contraptions they constructed. Still, no one called. He was unneeded, unwanted, unseen.

Humans teetering on the edge of adulthood would sometimes find their way to his home. They would come at night and throw parties. At first Snaggletooth enjoyed the revelries and was elated to have someone to clean up after, but he soon realized they did not care for his home, his forest. One night they set fire to the cabin. They laughed as it burned.

Still they returned. They left their trash laying about, never a thought to leave him even the smallest of tokens in return. This wasn’t the proper way of things. They insulted him. So he began to sour their beer and hid in the trees to bruise them with small stones. He enchanted the well so that any trash they threw into it would end up back in their own houses, just over the threshold. See how they liked having their homes made untidy!

They began to call the place haunted and after a while stopped coming. Snaggletooth was alone once more.

The brownie grumbled and stifled a yawn. The sun was high in the sky and he should be tucked into bed, soundly sleeping, but he had important plans today. He hopped down off the well and by the time his small feet hit the ground he was invisible. He scurried down a deer trail that met up with the humans’ biking paths and headed toward the heart of the park.

***

Josh finished his burger and shoved a few more fries into his mouth. He shook his drained cup. The stupid cashier had given him more ice then tea. Angrily, he flicked the emptied ketchup packets off the table one by one.

He hated his job at the noisy call center. Flick.

He hated the small cube he was confined to. Flick.

He hated the customers with their endless complaining and he hated his boss with that fake smile always plastered on his face. Flick, flick.

Josh took satisfaction in watching the leftover ketchup stain the blades of grass red, ruining the perfectly manicured look of the park’s picnic area where he ate his lunch every day. He hoped some kid slipped on them and had as miserable a day as he was having. Josh checked his watch. He was going to be late. Time to head back. He got up from the wooden picnic bench and walked towards the parking lot.

***

Cara snagged another empty cup from under a bush with her tongs and shoved it into the bucket. She watched the man get up from his seat and leave his trash on the table as he did every day. Normally she would be done picking up the litter by now and on to her other duties as a park employee, but the park was particularly filthy after the long weekend. And now, while she was in the middle of cleaning, this guy was adding to her work.

Trash and recycling bins were placed throughout the park. There were three right next to the picnic area alone! How was it people couldn’t manage to take a second and throw away their own trash? Didn’t they care about the way the park looked? Didn’t they worry about the safety of other people and the animals?

“Excuse me, the trash can is just over there.” She stepped into the path of the man and tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She was in her park uniform after all and was expected to remain professional.

The man scoffed at her and bent down peering at her name tag in an exaggerated fashion.

“Cara is it? Don’t they pay you to clean up the place? You should be happy I’m giving you a job.” The man sidestepped around her and continued to the parking lot.

Cara watched him get into a gas guzzling sports car and speed off. She daydreamed about chucking his ice filled cup at his head as she cleaned up the table and the ketchup packets.

“How would he like it if I came into his home and left trash everywhere!” She grumbled, a little too loudly. Two women watching their children play on the swing set turned to stare at her.

***

Snaggletooth snickered and stroked the back of the squirrel that sat beside him on a rock. He’d been watching the woman named Cara for a week now. He liked her. She hadn’t asked for his help, but he’d come to think that the people of this land just didn’t know how to. He’d help her anyway and besides, he loved playing a good prank.

He leaned down and whispered something into the squirrel’s ear. It immediately dropped the nut it was struggling with and darted off in the direction of the woman. Snaggletooth went in the opposite direction, back toward home. He had to temporarily alter the enchantment on the well.

***

Cara rolled her eyes as she caught sight of a plastic bag stuck around the base of a trash can. It’s oblong shape and green and orange lettering made it very distinctive. The stub of a receipt was still stapled to the top. It was from her boss’ favorite sub shop and this was not the first time she had found his trash not quite making it into the bin. Her boss spent most of his day in an air conditioned office ‘working’ and when he did come outside to eat he was just as bad as the rest of him in his casual disregard for the rules. But because he was her boss, she never said anything.

Cara reached for the bag with her tongs and nearly fell backwards when a squirrel darted out of nowhere and snatched it up. The animal ran a few feet away and perched on a rock at the edge of the wood line.

Cara set down her bucket and tongs. She approached it slowly, not wanting to scare the creature. She had to get the bag from it. If it bit off a piece and swallowed it, that could be very bad. Worse, it might have a nest somewhere and it could accidentally suffocate its young.

The squirrel sat watching her approach. They were fairly tame. Despite the signs telling them not to, people fed the wildlife. Cara slowly reached for the bag and just as her fingertips touched it, the squirrel turned and dashed off down one of the bike trails. Cara ran after it. The bag was large, it would likely get caught on something or the animal would drop it.

A few times the squirrel stopped, almost allowing her to catch up to it. It turned off onto a narrow deer trail and slowed down, carefully maneuvering between the thorny bushes. The bag did not get entangled as Cara had hoped. The deer trail abruptly opened up into a clearing. The squirrel hopped up onto the side of an old well and dropped the bag in, then scampered up a tree and disappeared.

Cara immediately went to the side of the well and looked in. It was pitch black. There was no sign of the bag. A strange chuckling echo rose up from the depths as a breeze passed over the mouth. Cara backed away from the edge of the well and glanced around.

She had never been this far off the trail before. The foundation of a small cabin sat in the center of the clearing and was built from the same stones as the well. Although the rest of the area was littered with pine needles and other natural debris, the stone platform was clean. Two clumps of yellow daffodils grew on either side of where a door might have once stood. Smooth river rocks neatly outlined their weed free beds.

Clearly someone knew about this place and was coming out here regularly, which meant this open well was a danger. It should be covered. She needed to report this to her boss immediately.

Cara returned to her boss’ office and raised her fist to knock when the door unexpectedly swung open. Dave towered over her.

“Oh there you are, I was just coming to find you.” His face looked flush and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I get your point. Okay? It won’t happen again.”

“Uh, what?” Cara replied, confused.

Dave stepped to the side and pointed at his desk. It was covered in a healthy helping of mud. In the middle sat the sub bag with its signature green and orange logo, the jagged stub of a receipt stapled near the top. It was the same bag she had just watched disappear down the well.

“Okay?”, he asked again.

“Yeah, okay.”, she mumbled. He shut the door in her face.

***

The sun was just rising as Cara dropped the yellow sticky note with her name written on it into the well. She hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Yesterday’s events were just too weird, but she couldn’t stop thinking about them. She had come into work early, before anyone else, to put her crazy thoughts to the test.

She immediately headed back to her boss’ office and checked his desk. He had cleaned it since yesterday and it was completely empty. No sticky note. Had she really expected to find one?

The rest of her work day was uneventful and she returned home in the evening exhausted. She opened her apartment door to find her cat curled up on the carpet in the entryway waiting for her. Kittykitty mewed and stretched, immediately heading toward the kitchen expecting dinner.

Kittykitty would have to wait. Cara was frozen in place. Directly under where her cat had been laying was the yellow sticky note, with her name on it, in her handwriting.

The next day Cara took one of her bracelets, made from recycled glass and plastic cord, with her to work. The bracelet was completely unique. She dropped it down the well. That night she came home and shooed her cat off towards the kitchen. She didn’t find the bracelet underneath, but she did find a very old coin.

***

Snaggletooth was delighted by the gift the woman had sent him. He wrapped it around his wrist twice and admired it. The green and blue beads caught the early morning sun like dew drops. He’d discovered it in the chimney the previous night. Anything of value that went down the well ended up in the chimney. He had quite a stash of trinkets and baubles and all manner of shiny things hidden away in the nooks of trees.

The woman who had once lived there kept her coins hidden in the trees as well. Snaggletooth had sent Cara one of these, knowing humans found them pleasing.

He heard someone coming down the path and immediately hid himself. It was Cara with a full trash bag. She hesitated for a moment and then dropped it down the well. The brownie grinned around a mouthful of sharp white teeth.

***

Cara payed close attention to the regulars the next day. Several glanced around, paranoia on their faces. They all placed their trash into the can today. The man who had insulted her a few days before sat at a table with his friend. They seemed engaged in an intense conversation. She snuck around the side of the cinder block washroom to listen in.

***

Josh leaned in, whispering to his friend. “Dude, I’m telling you, something ain’t right. I brought my girl here for a romantic time...and you know...I disposed of the evidence right over there, in those bushes.”

Mike gave him an exasperated look. “Are you sure it didn’t just get stuck to your shoe?”

“Come on, I ain’t that dumb.” Josh retorted. Did Mike really think he was lying about this?!

“You’re calling a booty call in your car in a public park romantic.” Mike pointed out.

Josh rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever, you’ve done it too. The point is the used rubber ended up back in my house! The wrapper was there too and the packaging from the Chinese food we ordered! What if my girlfriend had gotten home before I did?” His heart raced at the thought.

Mike clearly didn’t believe his friend and got up to leave. “Dude just put your shit in the bin next time.”

***

Cara wasn’t sure why it worked, only that it did. The trash she dropped down the well returned to its owners. She overheard a few people talking about it in hushed voices. Most people, she assumed, didn’t talk about it at all. It still sounded crazy, even to her, and she had proof.

There was another curiosity of the magic well she had discovered during the last few weeks. Sometimes she’d come upon an unusual piece of trash: a lost plastic butterfly barrette, a cheap gold painted hoop earring, a discarded makeup mirror. Whenever she dropped a bit of sparkly or unusual trash down the well, that night she would find another coin left just inside her door.

Cara took the coins to a local pawn shop and found out that they were quite old and worth a good bit to collectors. She made up a story about how she had inherited them from her grandfather, because what was she supposed to tell them? That a magic well was paying her for trash?

Over time the park had less and less litter to clean up. Cara had to empty the trash and recycling bins more frequently and she still maintained the trails and did small repairs, but nearly half her job was now gone. Eventually, her boss cut back her hours and she worried that she wouldn’t be able to make rent. Then an idea occurred to her. She saw litter everywhere she went. In her own apartment complex, along the road, at other parks.

Working part time now, she volunteered picking up trash at other places. She’d sneak back in the early morning hours, before the park was open, and dump the garbage down the well. The coins that showed up at her apartment more than made up for the loss in salary.

***

A chilly breeze blew past. Snaggletooth ducked into the cave he had dug out for the winter. Under the foundation stones of the cabin his home would stay dry and warm. He surveyed his work.

An old crate with discarded coats stitched into a simple quilt and pillow made for a nice bed. A cracked cup and bowl, clean and ready for his next meal, sat on a table made from scavenged wood. A shelf hung on one dirt wall displaying the best of the gifts Cara sent to him. Above it hung a tiny mirror that still smelled of perfume.

In one corner a pile of acorns were stacked. The squirrel had decided to join him for the winter. Snaggletooth didn’t mind. He liked the company. His memories were beginning to return. He missed having a family to take care of.

Maybe one day soon he’d remember his old name and then he’d introduce himself to Cara.