Elisardbeth

Monday

Monday morning. A grey blanket of rainy mist lay over the fjord village.
Valla stood by her kitchen window, wrapped in a beige cardigan that had once belonged to her sister. It now smelled vaguely of boiled cabbage and disapproval. The mug in her hand held coffee so weak it barely qualified as a liquid, let alone a beverage. No sugar. No milk. Just warm, brown bitterness.

Outside, the street was still slick from Sunday night’s rain, shining faintly in the early morning gloom. And there it was.

The garbage truck.

A beast of groaning hydraulics and fluorescent vulgarity, lurching from house to house like a bureaucratic slug that had filled out the wrong form and decided to collect bins out of spite. It paused in front of Number 14, exhaled a cloud of diesel-scented breath, and extended its mechanical arms with the sort of laboured indifference that suggested it had once known purpose but now only knew routine.

Valla narrowed her eyes.
She hated the garbage truck. She hated it so much that she, like with so many other things, kept a mental list of all the things she hated about it.

She hated the sound it made. It was an ungodly symphony of bangs, beeps, and metallic sighs. She hated the way it looked, bloated, orange, and smug. Most of all, she hated the man who drove it. A cheerful sort. The kind who waved at children, hummed at traffic lights, had there been any in the village. He probably says “no worries” without irony, she thought. Then she smiled, cause that was a new one to add to her list.

Valla looked across the street where her neighbour, Helga, stood at the porch in a pink robe and freshly curled hair. She waved at the truck driver. He smiled. Waved back.
Helga was called Helga Pæ by their peers. In their youth, she had gone by Helga Pæja, meaning party chick. The one every man wanted.
Valla hated that woman.

She took a sip of coffee and winced. It tasted like disappointment, which felt appropriate.

The truck moved on to Number 16. She watched it hoist a bin into the air, tip it with what could only be described as theatrical inelegance, then slam it back down with a hollow thunk. Rubbish spilled out. A yoghurt container rolled into the gutter and stayed there, mockingly.

She exhaled slowly through her nose.

The truck hadn’t come last week. “Biweekly,” the schedule claimed, with all the reliability of wet cardboard. And yet, she had missed it. The morning had felt off, like something expected but unpleasant had failed to arrive.

She didn’t like that either.

She hated the truck for coming.
She hated the truck for not coming.
She hated herself for noticing.

Ósk, her cat, slinked into the kitchen, looked at her, then at the mug, then back at her again with the expression of someone who had once believed in you and regretted it.

“Not now,” Valla muttered.

The truck turned the corner and disappeared from view.

Valla took another sip, still watching the street long after it was empty.
The yoghurt container remained in the gutter. She made a mental note to write a strongly worded note to the council, possibly in all caps.

The week had begun, and Valla already hated it.

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