Dopecentury XX --- Trash Fire
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: “the monotony rarely becomes tedious.”) My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these “Dopecentury” entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
A plastic bag, inflated by the wind, skitters down the street. The bag is caught in the grill of a truck. The truck is a heavy-hauler, six axles, stacked and rusting diamond plate strapped to the bed. The truck shifts down and belches a staccato bass note off the cracked windows of the canyon of buildings. Despite slowing, the wheels still hit the coming pothole with a force great enough to shake the ground for blocks in every direction. The soil under the water main that passed under the intersection settles. A void opens in the soil. The void widens. The pipe — long ago freed from the rusting steel straps that confined it — splits from the stress of trying to bridge a void it was never design to cross. The void floods. Pressure increases. Water forces its way upward, spreads under the asphalt, finds a weak spot, heaves up and cracks through. Black water streams across the road, meets the rise of the curb and changes course toward the storm drain. The storm drain accepts as much volume as it can before the gathering plastic bags, garbage, and gutter slime begin to force the water back. The water pools and rises, climbing up over the curb. The water spreads across the sidewalk, lifting food scraps and waste containers, solvents and oils, and transporting its payload over to a nearby housing complex where it flows down to flood basement apartments. The water fills the homes, submerges lives, then climbs out the other side of the building. The water flows across the sidewalk and finds a ventilation shaft for the train. The water falls into the shaft in a deluge, and cataracts its way down to the platform, then runs off into the track well. The water pools and the rats flee ahead of the flood into the darkness of the tunnel. A plastic bag rises on the surface and is pushed into the electric rail where the water it brings shorts the circuit and sets the plastic aflame. The flame catches other garbage: napkins and foam containers and plastic utensils and oily rags. The rising water brings more fuel to the fire. Bored commuters throw more trash down from the platform: coffee cups and religious pamphlets and greasy paper bags. The fire grows. A train comes shrieking around the corner of the tunnel. The operator sees the fire and applies the brakes. The train comes jolting and screaming down the platform, throwing up a wave that runs down the tracks ahead of it. Someone is pushed in front of the train. He escapes being hit by the slowing train only to be electrocuted by the water flooding the electric rail. The body arches, jolts, and smokes. The air smells of burnt hair. “Murder! Murder!” cries and pointing fingers on the platform. A tussle. Bodies are thrown about. Authorities arrive and intercede. Batons are swung. A window breaks. Shots are fired. Blood slides off the platform into the still-rising water. Weapons are improvised: a baseball bat, a piece of conduit, a broken bottle. Brickbats fly and black batons bounce back. The fire burns on, and smoke floats across the low ceiling. The air is damp and acrid and smells of mildew and rust. Sound is entirely drowned out in the melee. The doors of the train, still only half in the station, open and a flood of people pour out, bursting forward with rage at what they had just watched through the clouded and graffitied windows of the train. The reinforced crowd push forward, and the authorities are washed backward up the stairs to the street. The crowd pushes on, heaves up and cracks through to the street. The crowd spreads. Concrete is chipped up and sent flying. More authorities arrive, in vans, trucks, cars with screaming sirens, and on horseback. A cordon is formed, a line not to be crossed. A chunk of concrete breaks a window, and the cordon is showered with glass. The cordon surges forward with anger. The crowd falls back and the smoke from the train platform wafts across the street in front of them. Plastic bags are filled with stones and hurled into the cordon line. A fire hose is connected to a hydrant. The hydrant is opened and water dribbles from the impotent end of the fire hose — the split pipe of the water main has left no pressure. The cordon surges forward again spurred by the rage of their impotency. The crowd screams, and the cordon falls back leaving wounded laying on the ground in their wake. The crowd commandeer an approaching bus. It is parked between the cordon and the wounded and set aflame. Toxic black smoke billows up between the high buildings. The wounded are retrieved and dragged back into the crowd. The authorities bring in large loudspeakers over which they issue orders and threats. The crowd acquires their own loudspeakers from a nearby park party, and play loud music with a heavy beat back at the cordon.
Some in the crowd begin to dance. Inevitably, some in the cordon begin to dance too. Darkness falls, and the dance goes on by the light of the burning bus.