Liz

A Day’s Work at the Dump
or
Monday, March 6, 2065, 11:15am
###Sure, I’m called a Cultural Archaeologist, but who’s kidding whom. We all know it was just a fancy name used by the politicos to justify paying high salaries to otherwise unemployed grads during the Silent Depression. Me, I come from a long line of trash shifters, going back to the days when we were called “Waste Management Engineers.” I love my job, I really do, especially when I’m at the Kills Landfill.
###We had a bunch of newbies start there last spring. They showed up all clean and ready, liquid gloves and facemasks already applied, hooks and steripaks in hand, Wik-E Object Scanners locked and loaded. I had to stifle my laughter. I hardly ever wear the mask. Can’t stand the way it makes my skin feel after it’s washed off. Anyway, there’s not much smell to speak of these days, unless a rare unopened plastic bag is uncovered. What were those people thinking of, anyway? They knew the oil was going to run out - gas for cars, sure, but plastic trash bags? I never got that one.
###Anyway, it was one of those beautiful spring days we get in the North in March. Anything that could bloom did, and the wild parakeets were singing like mad. Me and the kids were going over the plan for the day, dividing into groups, laser mapping like crazy. I took the quadrant no one else wanted. It was far from the food’n drink pop-up and you had to cross one of those green streams that looked like it was solid. It’d been EPAed, but that didn’t mean anyone wanted to get that stuff on their boots. I gave the kids their marching orders: Wik-E everything; cull anything with more than 10 hits. If the scan says the object is more than 100 years old, buzz me ASAP and stay where you are. Too many times, they come running up to me, all excited that their prize from the 20th century will end up in the Museum, maybe even a reality podcast, only to find that they didn’t mark the spot, not even on their gmap. All those piles look alike when you’re trying to find a certain one.
###So I ambled my way to Quad 42. The stream was low, and I was pleased to see the make-shift bridge I’d made last fall was still there. I hadn’t found anything of interest back then, but there were certain places that I couldn’t get to on account of razor wire and kudzu. I figured this must have been a secret military dump, which would explain the off-putting green slime river. This time I’d brought laser cutters and a heat shield mask. It only took about 10 minutes to fry through the wire, and there in front of me was a small metal hut. I pushed open the door, hardly able to breathe, I was so excited. Of course, Crows had been there first, but it must’ve been decades ago, the dust and dirt were so thick. There was a table made of cardboard, a spindly wooden chair (worth a fortune, but looters usually looked for small bright and shiny things. Reason we called ‘em Crows). Lying on the floor was a white and red plastic bottle with some kind of corporate sign on it. The writing didn’t mean anything to me, though I was pretty sure it was English. It wasn’t emitting a signal but that wasn’t surprising. When I swiped my cellpad over the word, nada, which was strange. Then I realized it was even older than I thought. I quickly clicked on my Wik-E and hit scan. Sure enrough, about a million old things came upon the screen; a studly guy on a horse who looked like an ad for skin cancer, an ancient glossy picture of college kids drinking beer and smoking tobacco, an old ancestral hall somewhere in the EU, medical shots showing diseased lungs, etc. I quickly sprayed on gloves and picked it up. Here was for sure an item for the Museum, and yes, even I got caught up in the realty podcast idea. All of a sudden I missed my old partner Shannon. She would’ve understood how important the find was, what a great show it would be, with all this history behind it.. This could make my retirement! But probably my boss Honorable Lotus would take all the credit. So what, no big deal. I would still have this moment all to myself. Softly I repeated the mysterious word “Marlboro,” letting it roll around my mouth like smooth scotch whiskey.