The lisping god of small things

“Stop, stop! Can anyone halt that stupid garbage truck!” she screams. Sophia sprints after the vehicle on her bare feet. Her bathrobe falls open. In her left hand she holds a half-eaten sandwich with strawberry jam. Sophia waves with her other arm. She never knew garbage trucks could drive so fast.

When is the next standstill? The vehicle makes no attempt to slow down. Sophia throws the sandwich on the sidewalk. Now she runs, stumble, jumps and is waving madly with both her arms.

“Stop! Stop!” Hardly any sound comes out of her mouth anymore. She has covered at most fifty meters, but she is out of breath. Now she has to pay her toll for it. That she never turned her good intentions to exercise into action. She is as fit as an old man.

Then the monster stops. Sophia hears the engine running, a metal arm moves, grabs the grey container, pushes it up and empties the contents. She stops behind the truck. She bends over, puts her hands on her knees, pants, spits the saliva from her mouth.

“Hey, hey! Stop! Stop!” she screams with the last bit of air she has left in her lungs when she notices that the lorry has started moving again. This time she seems to have more success. The vehicle brakes. She waits for someone to get out. There is none. With small steps Sophia stumbles to the front of the truck.

A window rolls down. A man peers intrigued at her bare breasts. Sophia pushes the bathrobe shut. The driver takes a drag on a cigarillo. Is smoking allowed in these kinds of cars? She pushes the question away. She has business to discuss.

“I just made a terrible discovery,” Sophia says. “I dropped my gold chain in the outdoor waste container early this morning. The necklace my mother gave me on her deathbed,” Her voice breaks. “Can you look in the inside of the garbage truck to see if it’s still there?” The man blows smoke through the open window. He stares at her as if she were an alpaca, starts the engine and drives away.

“Of course not!” says her boyfriend. “Of course, the garbage man does not want to look into the inside of his truck. The chance that a polar bear will ring the doorbell and ask us to give something to the World Wildlife Fund is greater than that you will find the pendant in that stinking, reeking household trash and waste.”

After the truck had driven on, she had stood on the street. Exhausted, angry, sad. Until her boyfriend had put his arm around her and led her home. Now they are sitting at the kitchen table. Bread, cheese, yogurt, orange juice. A toddler is captured in the highchair. He is smearing his face with peanut butter.

“By the way, do you need the car this morning?” Sophia wants to know. Her voice sounds calm. As if she has already forgotten the necklace. But the boyfriend recognizes the look in her eyes. He knows his girlfriend well enough. She does not just let things go.

“What then? What are you planning?” he wants to know. She stands up, grabs a cloth, and walks over to their son. With excessive zeal she starts to remove the peanut butter from the child’s face.

“I know you. I know that look in your eyes,” says the friend. “You’re planning something.” He pushes the bowl of yoghurt away.

“Me? Planning something? What makes you think that?” says Sophia. She notices that there is still dirt in the right ear.

“Forget the necklace,” he says. “You have lost it. A stupid mistake, a moment of inattention. It just so happened. Things like that take place in our humble, mundane lives. We must accept it.”

She puts the cloth on the table. Quietly, calmly. She stands up straight and crosses her arms over her chest. A teacher about to lecture an annoying and inattentive teacher. “The necklace is not just any necklace,” she says. Very softly and exaggeratedly slowly. “I got the jewel from my mother six years ago. On her deathbed. After ten years of not being in touch. That was a turning point in my life. The blood started flowing through my frozen veins again. So, I will do everything, everything that is necessary to get that necklace back. No garbage man, no friend who will stop me.”

It takes Sophia ten minutes to find out what is done with the outdoor waste. It is all on the council website. The times when the trucks arrive at the dump and throw away their contents. And most importantly. At the end of the day, all the rubbish is compacted. After that proceeding, there is no way to look for anything.

“No, ma’am, it is forbidden for private individuals to enter the site,” says the man in the cubicle. Sophia has parked her car inconspicuously on the road and walked to the entrance of the dump. Seemingly untroubled. As if she is just strolling.

Her eyes scan the area. She sees a truck. She recognises the driver with the thin cigar in his mouth. She thanks the man in the cubicle and walks away from the area as if being lost in thoughts.

I only have an hour, Sophia realises. She puts her phone back in her jacket. From her hiding place behind the rhododendron, she sees the movements of the workers. She keeps an eye on the man in the cubicle in particular. Isn't it dinner time? Teatime?

As if he can read her mind. With fifteen minutes to go, he leaves his stand and trudges with the drivers to a small stone building. Sophie hurries to the entrance to take the exit where the rubbish that was collected in the morning being dumped.

A sour smell of full diapers, spoiled vegetables, dirty milk cartons hit her face. At the same time, she is surrounded by billions of buzzing, whining, stinging, hissing, droning insects.

She pricks the reeking ground with a hiking pole. Plastic bottles, metal cans, used cleaning cloths, garden waste, tea bags. She gags. She tastes this afternoon's coffee and shortbread biscuits. How much time does she have before the men return from their break? She pokes and pokes like she is stabbing a giant to death.

And as the late afternoon sun shines over the mountains of rubbish, she feels the futility of her assignment. What is she doing? Another case of not thinking but doing? And how many times has that happened to her? How often has she lost the battle?

“Hey, little lady! What are we doing there?” The men saunter out of the building and see Sophia sitting on a pile of litter. The hiking pole lies idle in her hand. She raises her arms in surrender. It has been good. She should have listened to her reasonable friend.

“I acknowledge it, I’m crazy!” she says. “I surrender. No more trusting in fate. No more believing that there is a lisping god who helps me searching for small things like a necklace.”

The people see how helpless, how deeply sad she is. In the meantime, the driver with the cigar is telling his colleagues what it is about. A gold pendant. From her mother. On her deathbed.

Without an appointment, without any discussion, without any plan or strategy, the working men look for a stick and start searching in that steaming mess for a precious metal necklace.

 “Let’s help for half an hour,” says the man from the cubicle. It has become dark by now. They light up the rubbish and filth with their mobile phones. It takes a while before Sophia realizes what is happening. She expected to be cursed at. Now she watches in amazement as the men push, stab, and poke at the stinking mess.

Sophia is about to say how grateful she is that the garbage men are helping her. How thankful she is that they did not make fun of her. Let us be honest. There was every reason to do so. But they have done enough. They can go home. The strand is gone for good.

Then a cry is heard. The driver with the cigar holds up a gold necklace. Everyone gathers around him. Did they succeed? Did a miracle happen after all? Does fate exist? The lisping god?

Sophie throws her arms around the man. Tears roll down her cheeks. But not because the pendant has been found. What the man is holding in his hands is not her mother’s. But it does not matter. She cries because she is so proud of their support, their help.

And as they all walk towards the exit - relieved and triumphant -Sophie feels something in her hand. It comes from the man in the cubicle. “I think this is the right one,” he whispers. She opens her hand. And sees her mother’s gold pendant. Dirty, beautiful.