Garbage Bags

There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about me. I’ve never had any special hobbies like my brothers- one loved dance and the other loved singing. They were exceptional at it, of course. So good that they became national icons, the dynamic teen duo every household knew and loved, including mine.

I loved them, I really did. Of course, there were times I got really upset with the way everyone knew them and nobody bothered about me. I’d become upset, obviously, and dad would be the only one who would care to calm me down. Dad and I had a shared hobby too, so we were closer in that sense- Mother would usually ignore me, saying I didn’t need the level of attention my brothers did.

They disappeared one day. Local news channels couldn’t, for all they were worth, figure out what happened to them. My dad imitated the perfect husband-and-father in grieving, and I acted the perfect daughter-and-sister in grieving. We played our parts so well; nobody suspected a thing.

Some said they died in a car crash and my dad and I didn’t tell anyone so we could get the insurance money. Some said we were Satan’s followers and summoned the devil to swallow their pure souls. Others disagreed, saying we were the victims in the situation, and needed all the support we could get. Which was partly true. I was a victim, all my childhood. I know that dad did it for me, because he didn’t want me to suffer anymore. Dad often looked pleased with himself after that when making our meals, which were either steaks or curry. Nobody noticed our garbage bags increasing in number.

I never expected to hear about them again. Never wanted to stumble upon their names on a street or meet them at a restaurant. Definitely didn’t want to hear about them being found on national television. And I was lucky enough to not have any of these things happen to me. They never resurfaced into the public mind.

I grew up and became good at human anatomy and the sciences. What used to be a childish interest became an adult hobby, complete with a sort of portfolio I made. I earned well, from various side-jobs, and could even afford to keep a plant or two. I have a small apartment, and I like the café down the street because they serve coffee just the way I like it. I never wanted for anything more.

-x-

The apartment across got new tenants. They’re alright. The lady has a smile that looks…ugly. It’s too wide. But that I could forgive. Then they began asking me questions.

At first, it was the lady- “you’re a little weird, aren’t you?” she stated one day, when we went to throw the garbage and happened to get into the same elevator.

Then another day; “you must eat a lot of meat. Your garbage stinks to high heavens- but you probably don’t notice it with that mask you’re wearing. And you travel a lot, it seems, with all the suitcases you keep wheeling out at odd hours.” She smiled after saying that, as if she was proud of her observational skills. It irked me. So, I opened one of the three bags I was holding, and let her see the stuff inside. She peered in, pinching her nose. “What is it? All I can make out is a bunch of cloth soaked in red paint or something. What, are you cleaning up pig-blood or something in there?”

But all I said out loud was, “I’m vegetarian.” I wasn’t.

When I walked out of the elevator, I could hear her gasp and run to the bushes outside our building, and violently retch. If dad were still here, he’d be disappointed- “art is never subjective, my child. When something is beautiful, it is exemplary. But when something is ugly, it is up to artists like us to make them beautiful,” he used to say. I agree with that sentiment.

I threw my garbage alone that morning.

Then came the ruckus in the hallways. The man across my apartment, who presumably lived with the lady, started throwing drunken fits at night.

Two weeks after the tenth fit, the man banged on my door at 9 in the night, a little after my bedtime. I heard him shouting and banging on my door for about two minutes, before I heard the shouts becoming muffled. I got up to check what the matter was, but all I managed to see was the lady dragging the man into the apartment as fast as she could, and him flailing around in her arms. She looked up when shutting her door and dropped the man with a resounding thud when she saw me.

About two to three days after that, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I rang the bell of the unit across and waited for the lady to open the door. I heard her walking to the door, slide the door-chain in place and then crack the door open an inch. She stammered out a greeting, to which I cordially responded, and then asked me why I was there.

“I’m terribly sorry for interrupting your morning, but every night for the past month, I’ve heard that roommate of yours make a scene in the hallway. It gets a bit hard to...finish my work with all the noise, so I’d appreciate it if you kept your door shut.” I smiled at her, to make her more comfortable. Like she did the day we met. She nodded quickly, and smiled back at me, albeit a bit nervously. She kept looking at my shirt, for some reason. When she shut the door, I heard a thump right behind it- it's good that she’s empathetic to her neighbour’s needs.

When I returned home, the work I left on the floor when I went out got messy there. While cleaning it in the washroom, I noticed why she kept looking at my shirt- it had a red stain on it. Silly me, I can’t even complete some work without getting it all over myself. I chuckled, and finished washing my hands. I apparently didn’t notice the puddle on the floor from the earlier mess, because I slipped on it and landed on my elbow-dark hardwood floors tend to make stains a little harder to spot. No major bruises, but I did notice the red stain on my elbow.

So, I started wearing a plastic raincoat when I did work- my shirts are made of incredibly good material, and it wears thin with each wash. Plus, blood is hard to get out of linen.

 -x-

The man across, whose name I gathered to be Mark, ran every night before his fits. A sort of stress buster, it seemed. He would always slam the door shut when leaving, often right after a yelling match occurred between him and the woman (Lisa). I heard her sob behind the thin walls and felt a great deal of annoyance- I thought she was empathetic. Her pitiful sounds interrupted my focus during work.

I endured it for 2 weeks. Then, during a particularly tricky cut I was making in my most recent work, I heard a slap and more yelling than usual. It seemed like their fight became more serious. That meant my work would lose its precision because of their raucous conflicts.

That was, perhaps, my trigger. The last straw, if you will.

That evening, when the man went for his regular run, I followed him. Through a trail that led farther and farther away from the apartment, toward the woods.

My work, for the first time in years, was so easy. It felt like it was tied with a ribbon and handed to me.

It didn’t take much to knock him out. I was driving, so I had all my supplies. What was a little tough was carrying him into the car- he was heavier than I expected. But I’ve carried heavier, and my work won’t be sabotaged because of his lack of dietary discipline.

By the time I got him home, it was an hour past bedtime. And it was the time he’d usually return and start throwing his fits. His door was open, and I could hear the tap in the kitchen sink running- enough of a cover for me to drag him into my unit. From the corner of my eye, I saw the lady slipping into the bedroom at the end of the hallway from the washroom.

I dragged him into my living room and dumped him right in the centre- he should feel honored. The centre of my workplace is usually reserved for special pieces of work.

His legs made one of the finest art pieces I’d ever seen or made. His arms made the wings. And his spine created the tail- I didn’t believe in religion, or the devil and such. But I had to admit, the art made on their principles were fantastically beautiful.

Lucifer, falling from the Heavens, being stripped of his angelic characteristics.

I discarded the excess bits, of course, like his head and neck. Unnecessary additions ruined the final piece.

It did pain me, though, to have to destroy my art moments after creating it. I had drawn a sample piece, to base it off, so I could look back on it and keep fond memories. I had to eat the meat before it started rotting and stinking up my apartment. It was a heavy meal, certainly, but I enjoyed it after flambéing the legs a bit and adding an age-old gravy recipe dad passed down to me. I’d never felt the satisfaction of killing two birds with one stone before, but now I did.

The next morning, when I went to throw my garbage, the lady joined me once more. Her face, apart from a growing blue bruise, was stoic like she didn’t care to comment on my discards anymore. She did glance at the four garbage bags when I was throwing them in the plastics pile, but went away right after, like she didn’t care.

An odd thought struck me- she must have seen me. if she didn’t, she would have started panicking by now; people usually panic when someone disappears, don’t they?