I have collected a lot of interesting trash over the last year or so since Calvin and I have walked the sidewalks of our neighborhood. I have found a total of close to $50.00, a winning $5.00 lottery scratch off ticket and even someone’s driver’s license. It pays to look down and bend over, at times.
Anyway, I picked up this empty cigarette pack. It promised the user that they would experience freedom. Death, maybe? That is a form of freedom. Then I noticed that, tucked into the cellophane wrapper in the back, was a note with a telephone number and a name; John. As I imagine it, John met Litterer in a bar. They had a drink. They talked business or they were thinking in romantic terms. Whatever the situation, John gave Litterer his phone number expecting a call. Litterer inserted it in the back of his cigarette pack then put it into a pocket or purse. Unfortunately, Litterer smoked the last cigarette, apparently forgot about the note with the phone number and tossed the empty pack out the window where it lay nested in the soft green grass at the end of my street for me to find. It now resides in my trash can waiting to be taken to its final resting place. I like to imagine that Litterer regrets losing John’s phone number. One of those guilty pleasures of the mind. It would be a small measure of poetic justice for littering my neighborhood. Regardless, I don’t think John is going to get that call he is expecting, sorry John.