The Scavenger

The sun has long been set. The melting red western horizon now emits only darkness—thick liquid drops of darkness. The darkness intensifies the smog hung around the atmosphere like a mysterious curtain.

Through this mournful darkness I saw the man stumbling and staggering his exhausted steps along the parallel iron tracks of the ever-busy Railway Junction. The man, hunch back, is stooping forward, may be with the burden of his age—not so much chronological as much as mental.

He is on shirt and trousers—both so dirty that it is impossible to imagine the colour and texture they once had. His feet well protected with a pair of heavy-duty boots—better befitting in the mountaineers’ camp than on even muddy lands! He also has an apron! A well-torn dusty towel to be precise, with an unforgettable stinking smell that could only give birth to nothing else but nausea.

A trailing dirty sack follows him—his sole weapon to gather the garbage collected from shallow drains beside railway tracks. He has to get down to the knee-deep drains, sweep out all the thrown-away from there, pile up the heap on the damp blackish rag and carry them on his shoulder all along through the rail way tracks to the remote Recycling Centre at the other end of the Rail Yard.

The man, mumbling to himself, pulls the heavy load on his humped back and starts staggering to his routine-route. This time he seems more leaned forward.

He moves forward, stumbling and staggering through the dense mist, with a mammoth load on back. He walks between the shinning railway tracks parallel, which tack him forward through this engulfed darkness and lead him into infinity.

The man walks…he vanishes into the foggy mist…he staggers his weary steps towards infinity…he merges there…