20101102

The Streets are Grinning

by Caro Harvey Cooper

She drives a rubbish truck. It's not as unsanitary as you'd imagine – she just sits behind the wheel of a truck filled with the discarded past of a city that fears its own filth. It's the "picker" - the guy on the back - who gets washed with the liquids and mystery rot that spray from the black bags. She just drives like a staccato song along streets that wait patiently for her, streets that love her and greet her each week with a trash-toothed smile. The rubbish waits for her the way he never could, never would. Six months she was inside – he barely waited three days.

6S

Caro Harvey Cooper has a second thumb on her left hand, so she's perfectly suited to write (and count) six sentences.