The Wrong Leaves

Happy bin men in hi-viz shirts, wearing shades, looking cool and walking jaunty but for the all pervasive aroma of bin juice; that sour/sweet fruity waft that only wasps seem to enjoy. They work their way around the bins at the edge of a village green where a man follows a retriever; the man is retrieving dog shit in warm, squishy pocketfuls of Morrison’s carrier bags. Now there’s friendship.

Today our saws are silent because paperwork doesn’t add up. Maps are being held, orientated this way, revolved that way as brows furrow and heads are scratched. Trees are not where they should be, signatures are missing, pole numbers are wrong, pink copies, yellow copies and green copies flutter and rustle in confused hands like dead leaves being filed by a leaf-blower, why don’t managers answer phones, and where the hell’s the linesman got to?

Another dead job buried under the useless leaves of a bureaucratic early-autumn. In other words; the job’s fucked.