julian94
12-26-2012, 05:23 PM
Copper-skinned children in tattered clothes, drenched in grease and scum, gather around the base of the highest heap of trash. They cheer for equally squalid individuals, who race under the heat, their hair, eyebrows and clothes covered in thick sweat, for the summit of the perpetually changing mountain.
Each step reveals a new texture: the carcass of a cat, a stack of magazines. They’re careful not to stick their feet into traps disguised as plastic containers and tin cans.
A side of the mountain crumbles. Garbage rattles as substances collide, burying someone--both a casualty and an eliminated opponent. Liquids and smog spew from the new pile of rubbish like fountains. The race goes on.
Tropical sunlight pierces leaden clouds bulging with rain, entrenching into the heap of trash covered in grime and detritus like brass prison bars. Metals glint through the monochromatic wasteland in the prismatic hues of a diamond.
Only two are left. They haste, while assessing, through their acute perception of the physics of the place, every step and everything they grasp. They remain unscathed, observant of glass shards and slabs of wood on which nails are pointed.
The crowd cheers, among them the eliminated. The remaining two are neck-to-neck on opposite sides. One group argues how the other side is less steep, and the other argues the same. They hoot, chant and shake bottles with sand as makeshift maracas.
When the winner, a black-haired girl covered in lice and maggots, reaches the summit, voices are raised; fists are out; these are habitual actions which define the race as a competition. The girl raises her hand toward the setting sun, as the mountain surreptitiously clings around her feet, eventually devouring her.
Each step reveals a new texture: the carcass of a cat, a stack of magazines. They’re careful not to stick their feet into traps disguised as plastic containers and tin cans.
A side of the mountain crumbles. Garbage rattles as substances collide, burying someone--both a casualty and an eliminated opponent. Liquids and smog spew from the new pile of rubbish like fountains. The race goes on.
Tropical sunlight pierces leaden clouds bulging with rain, entrenching into the heap of trash covered in grime and detritus like brass prison bars. Metals glint through the monochromatic wasteland in the prismatic hues of a diamond.
Only two are left. They haste, while assessing, through their acute perception of the physics of the place, every step and everything they grasp. They remain unscathed, observant of glass shards and slabs of wood on which nails are pointed.
The crowd cheers, among them the eliminated. The remaining two are neck-to-neck on opposite sides. One group argues how the other side is less steep, and the other argues the same. They hoot, chant and shake bottles with sand as makeshift maracas.
When the winner, a black-haired girl covered in lice and maggots, reaches the summit, voices are raised; fists are out; these are habitual actions which define the race as a competition. The girl raises her hand toward the setting sun, as the mountain surreptitiously clings around her feet, eventually devouring her.