Pick Up

Adam

Adam Starlight was wading his way through a mound of rubbish. His arms were heavy, his hips tight and he could barely feel his toes.

A thrown away, empty packet of Skips was flatly stuck to the sole of his shoe. He kicked his foot without rhythm, but the packet remained stuck. He wiped the beads of sweat that dangled atop his eyebrows with his forearm, as the smell of the rubbish around him lingered in his nostrils.

There were thirteen other prisoners from his block, all going through the trash heap. They were to find and separate different types of plastics, papers and glass.

Adam's heart wasn't in this job. For three years, he had worked as a bus driver. With every intoxicated passenger and disrespectful teenager, he had thought that driving a bus was the worst job in the world. He would have to sit down all day, getting fatter and growing more impatient with every repetitive shift. He knew now that he had been wrong. Now, the thought of driving around all day was miles better than treading through crap heaps to help aid his rehabilitation.

As he picked up dirty wrappers, he couldn't help thinking about where he was now and where he thought he'd be ten years ago. He wasn't sure what he event wanted anymore. Life had taken so much out of him that it felt wrong to even think about willing something positive to happen. Tomorrow would mark one year since he had been sentenced. It was a shit life inside, but life outside wasn't much better.

Adam heard a loud crunch under his foot. As his eyes glanced down to the ground, he realised that he had stepped on an empty wine bottle, shattering it. He kicked the glass off of his boot, checking if any had gone through the material. As he did, he noticed a small piece of paper inside. Adam knelt down to check what it was. It looked relatively new, and the paper was still crisp.

With his thick gloves, he wiped away shards of green glass and stood back up with the piece of paper in tow. In the top right hand corner, there was a note:

'Call Peter'.

The only other bit of writing on it, was in the middle of the sheet. It was a phone number.

The siren rang to signal the end of the shift. Every other inmate began trudging their way back to the bus that was waiting for them by the high metal fence.

Adam looked back at the piece of paper. He folded it until it was a tiny square, and dropped it into his left side pocket.