Gum Grey Tarmac

David watched as the company-issue tongs hovered over the landscape of refuse bulging from the top of his wheelie bin. The grip, ergonomically moulded with finger-shaped grooves, was painted an official shade of red; silver shafts that flashed with danger and consequences in the sunlight. The pincers seized and turned over a milk carton. 100% recyclable. A translucent tray that once held Cumberland sausages. Birds Eye waffles box. Olives-in-brine jar. A can of Stella Artois. And another. Several.
‘All thoroughly rinsed, I hope?’ Inspector Cloud, holder of the tongs, said.
‘Of course,’ David replied.
The tongs returned to the sausage tray. They quivered.
‘Is that recyclable?’ Inspector Cloud said.
‘Yes.’
‘It says so on the label, does it?’
‘Yes,’ David said.
‘Where is the label?’
‘It’s in there somewhere.’
The tongs lifted the tray, turning it methodically. Inspector Cloud squinted. Then he tutted.
‘I can’t see a recycling symbol in the mould of the tray,’ he said.
‘Not all of them do,’ David said, ‘if the label already has one.’
‘Hm.’
The tongs stalked over the next few pieces of recyclables – toothpaste tube (cut open and diligently cleaned out), yoghurt pot and foil seal, Lavazza packet rinsed of residual coffee grounds – before freezing in mid-air, having just pushed aside a Yorkshire tea box. Beneath the box was an empty water bottle, crumpled and modest, refracting the morning sunlight.
‘Mr Tibbs, isn’t it?’ Inspector Cloud said.
‘Yes,’ David said, chancing a check of his watch.

‘That’s a water bottle.’
‘Is it?’
‘Present the permit, please.’
‘I don’t have it with me.’
‘Where is it?’
‘I left it at work.’
‘You’re well aware Harmful Material Permits should be readily available to any THOGLIA-employed representative who requests it during a random inspection such as this,’ Inspector Cloud said, with pride in his voice. He clicked the tongs together.
‘Yes,’ David said. ‘Of course. I know the rules. Sir.’
 Across the street, a window opened with an angry whine. A voice hurtled down at them.
 ‘Don’t listen to him, Dave! It’s all bollocks!’
 ‘OK. Thanks Claude–’ David said.
 ‘Just tell him to fuck off–’
 ‘Watch your mouth, you slob!’ Inspector Cloud snapped. ‘Do you want to get sanctioned again? Really?’
 Claude was laughing. His gut wobbled over the window ledge.
‘You can shove your credit up your arse, you corporate fucking government lackey,’ he hissed. ‘Lick my unwashed salty ballsack, how’s that for credit deduction.’
 ‘He’s right, Claude,’ David said. ‘Give it a rest, for your own sake.’
 ‘Oops!’
 Claude started throwing items of rubbish from the window. Greasy aluminium takeaway trays and ready meal pots smeared with curry sauce and ketchup, all unrinsed and left to go crispy. Cans leaking foamy flat beer. Burnt silver foil. Lumps of wet clingfilm. Iced latte buckets.
‘Whoops again! Does that look reusable? Probably not, but who gives a fuck? Not me. Yeah that’s right, Inspector, that’s clingfilm. Horrible single-use clingfilm. You wanna fine me? Go ahead. I got nothing. Funny that, how the ones with no money have to buy that black market single-use shit isn’t it? Doesn’t seem right to me. Does it seem right to you?’
Claude didn’t wait for an answer. More items were jettisoned onto the road. Wasabi bento box. Ball of cracked elastic bands, previously used for spring onions and bunches of coriander. Cardboard tray for vine tomatoes, with a plastic wrapping that floated down to the tarmac like a feather.
Inspector Cloud watched as Claude’s refuse rained down around him. David checked his watch again; his shift started in less than half an hour.
‘This has not gone unnoticed,’ Cloud called up to Claude, who upturned an ashtray out of the window. A grey mist crawled across the street. Cigarette butts bounced off the tarmac like foamy maggots.
‘No shit,’ Claude said.
‘We’ll be seeing each other again,’ Inspector Cloud said.
‘Can’t fucking wait.’
Claude slammed the window shut.
Cloud shook his head. ‘What is that man’s problem? He knows the rules. What’s the use in complaining?’
‘He’s frustrated,’ David said. ‘The system–’
‘Is fine, if you bother to follow regulation. Either way, it's another fine for him.’
‘Is that really necessary?’
Cloud’s tongs were back in hand.

‘I don’t remember asking for your opinion,’ he said.

‘I know, but I think other members of the community found the last fining quite, erm…’
‘What?’
‘Traumatic.’
Inspector Cloud smirked, and David hated him.
‘Rules are rules,’ the inspector said. ‘Now, back to that worrisome water bottle.’
‘I’m sure I can find the permit if you’ll just give me a day or two–’
‘Do you think our beloved Earth has a few days?’ Inspector Cloud said. ‘No, no, no, Mr Tibbs. Hear me clearly now: I will have to open a formal investigation into this troubling discovery.’
‘Sorry - what?’
A dehydrated wet wipe scuttled along on the breeze behind the Inspector.
‘Inspector Cloud,’ David continued, ‘I recognise that was a frustrating exchange you just had with my neighbour–’
‘Irrelevant.’
‘–which, understandably, must make you very angry, which is unfair because you do admirable work, you really do.’
‘There’s no need for flattery.’
‘Some might say what you do is, well, noble.’
‘Please stop.’
David stopped.
Then he blurted out, ‘You don’t have to do this,’ trying to suppress the desperation in his voice. He’d heard it too many times before in others’, as they begged not to be fined or investigated.
‘You know I have to do this,’ Inspector Cloud said.
He picked up his clipboard and holstered his tongs and that was the last he spoke to David.
The inspector spared a brief look up at Claude’s window before climbing into his electric van and driving silently away.
#
‘So how did you get the bottle?’
David’s colleague Conor looked up from the hot plate, face wreathed in fatty steam. The turtle tattoo on his neck glistened with sweat.
 ‘From a shop,’ David said.
 ‘Yeah, but how? We both know you don’t have a permit. Nor would you ever be able to get one,’ Conor said.
 ‘You don’t have to say it like that.’
 ‘Like what?’
 ‘Like I’m a second class citizen.’
 ‘But you are.’
 ‘I know that, but you don’t have to remind me with your tone.’
 ‘I didn’t,’ Conor said.
 ‘You did,’ David said. He picked up a carving knife and began slicing beef tomatoes. ‘As you stand there flipping patties.’
 Conor dropped his patty flipper.
 ‘Tell me, Davey–’
 ‘Don’t call me that.’
 ‘A question for you, David,’ Conor drawled. ‘Do you think that you serve society, or that society serves you?’
 David stopped slicing.
 ‘What the fuck does that even m—’
 The bell on the service counter rang. Conor laughed him out to the waiting customer, who, when finished reading the fluorescent menu board, and without looking at David, pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it and began to scroll. The phone speaker rattled with bursts of spiky sound – bad singing, twangs of operatic string music, crashing car horns, howling laughter, animals cawing.
 ‘Yeah,’ the man said.
 ‘Sorry?’ David said. ‘Did you want to order something?’
 ‘Yeah.’
 The man looked up, mouth dropping open again, to read the menu for the second time.
 ‘Can I get the Enviro-Friendly Meal Deal mate. That comes with fries, yeah?’
 ‘It comes with a sense of guilt free eco satisfaction,’ David recited.
‘Yeah, can I get that.’
David punched the order into the till.
‘Hang on,’ the customer said. ‘It’s all vegan now. Is it really all vegan now?’
‘Yes. Of course it is.’
‘How long has it been vegan? Is it like this in all of them?’
‘Yes,’ David said. ‘It’s a chain. This is one outlet in the chain.’
‘But why did it go vegan?’ the man persisted.
‘Because … if it was beef, we’d have to charge fifty quid per patty,’ David said, unsure if this guy was having him on, as his mind lurched through memories of the chlorine- and water-injected meat abolition movement; of exponentially rising tax rates for organically farmed produce to deter mass production (and by extension, mass disease outbreak); but, by God, if it had to be born, fed and processed, it just had to be organic. Couple that with the systemic defunding and demonisation of the burgeoning laboratory-grown meat industry by sceptical and superstitious conservative governments (some of whose corrupt elected leaders had a proven line in importing tax-exempt, grass-fed Irish beef, buried deep in the paperwork of some shell company or another) and, sure as next summer was set to be the hottest since records began, it took no time for the rise of state-controlled corporations to start pumping out sloppy meat alternatives that the world had no choice but to buy instead, while their profits swelled, shareholders’ dividends exploded like a savvy drone strike, and their emissions data kept a convenient state secret—
‘I’ll go with the eco-whatever meal. Cheers,’ the man said, eyes back on his phone.
David put the order through the till and walked back to the kitchen. Conor was staring at him. He looked nauseous.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ David said.
‘Look at your phone.’
It was beside the chopping board, where he’d left it. David tapped the black screen. He saw the notification. He swiped. The THOGLIA logo, sickly green and trembling, filled the screen. Leaves fluttered into existence, forming the words: David Tibbs is required by law to attend an investigative hearing at THOGLIA branch #598. Legal representation prohibited. See you there Best Wishes, Carol @ THOGLIA, Pollution and Restricted Materials Investigative Division (this message was auto-generated by a bot, for more information on why this happened or for human-sent correspondence, please click HERE).
The patty on the hotplate was burning.
Conor said, ‘When?’
David said, ‘Tomorrow. Fuck.’
He picked up the knife and began to slice up his phone.
#
The next morning David was on a train gliding through arid fields pierced with peeling billboards. One read IT WAS CLEARLY SIGNPOSTED, with a winking emoji in place of the “O”. A few miles later, another said CALL THIS NUMBER FOR THE DIRRRRTY TRUTH. The number pasted on the billboard looked a lot like his own, but before he could look again it was too late. His mind was preoccupied with the imminent hearing, his anxiety aggravated by what he had witnessed only a few hours ago, during a cloying night of no sleep.
They had come to fine Claude.
David heard the van pull up outside, boots scratching the tarmac, doors slamming. They knocked twice and kicked in the door. Claude was dragged out into the glare of the van’s headlights. He had no money, so, like before, he would be fined in a different way. He barely resisted, remaining speechless and shivering in his pyjama shorts. One of the armoured men declared Claude’s offence and the sentence to be carried out momentarily. A blowtorch clicked on and began to heat the branding plate, which curled into the word IRRESPONSIBLE. This was when Claude started screaming. David saw other curtains along the street twitching. ‘Don’t listen to them!’ Claude wailed. ‘It’s all lies! Microplastics aren’t real! Recycling is a scam! They just want you to buy their shitty burgers and pies! The landfills aren’t full—’ He was forced to his knees. David saw the mark from his last fine, still scabbed and red, across his back. What David found the most chilling, rather than the sound of Claude’s blistering, bubbling flesh as the white hot brand was pressed against his belly, was the sight of Inspector Cloud inside his electric THOGLIA van, watching the cruelty unfold from the safety behind the steering wheel.
#
David alighted the train and headed for THOGLIA branch #598, a vast white box in the middle of endless barren farmland, like it could have been air dropped in.
 An automatic door slid open as he approached. A synthy jingle welcomed him inside a foyer of light, faux-pine furniture and hard grey carpet. It was empty and incredibly hot. A fan on the reception desk coughed away. David walked through to a long corridor of more grey carpet. The walls were yellowish, the ceiling nonsensically high. The corridor went on and on. Then it didn’t. At the end was a bigger door with a plaque that said LISTENING ROOM, but the tone with which David read it inside his head sounded closer to INTERROGATION ROOM. He went through to more whiteness, emptiness and severe carpet; THOGLIA trying to conceal itself in a supposedly savvy statement of inconspicuousness, despite the titanic size of the building he was now walking further and further into. The Listening Room was long and empty. It reminded David of an underground waterfall. Somewhere a clock ticked. At the far end was a small white desk with a woman sitting behind it. She wore a green dress and she was too far away for David to clearly make out her features.
 ‘It’s awfully hot in here, isn’t it?’ she said.
 ‘Yes,’ David said. ‘Is there air con?’
 She tittered. ‘Oh, yes. We’re not animals here, Mr Tibbs.’
 A humming drifted through the room. The air cooled, a fraction.
 ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ the woman said.
 ‘Yes,’ David said.
 ‘This business with the water bottle permit. Now, Mr Tibbs, you may think it ridiculous to require a legal document in order to hydrate but you must realise that capitalism is literally eating the world. In a way. Especially since the Advent of the Plastic Carrier Bag. Fatbergs are clogging up sewers. Mountains of second-hand fast fashion are building like fossil formations in Ghana. Landfills are puking giant tumours of garbage, which float out on the scummy, oily oceans. Some have declared sovereignty as independent nations, launching their own slave trade of AI milk bottles on Kickstarter and attempting to colonise other trash islands. Meanwhile, miraculously, the rampant, infinite fire of inequality continues to burn across the Amazon. Sightings of it have even been reported in the rainforests of Hull. Didn’t you know all of this?’
 ‘I didn’t,’ David said.
 ‘You should check your phone more often.’
 ‘I hate my phone.’
 ‘That is counterproductive.’
 ‘Who are you?’
 David still couldn’t make out her features, just a pale, circular face with short dark hair. She moved minutely, her voice flat and emotionless but David, despite his weary unease, found it comforting.
 ‘I am a THOGLIA ambassador,’ she said. ‘In the name of THOGLIA, I am here to help, restore, rebuild.’
 ‘Rebuild what?’ David said. 
‘Let’s get back to that water bottle,’ she said.
 ‘OK.’
 ‘Plastic bottles are a highly controlled material.’
 ‘Yes, I’m aware of that.’
 ‘A permit is required.’
 ‘I am aware of that.’
 ‘You told Inspector Cloud that you have a permit. Is that correct?’
 ‘Yes.’
 ‘Even though, looking at your file, we know that you currently don’t have a permit. And never have.’
 David listened to the ticking noise, which was getting louder.
 ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t know where it came from. Someone must have left it there.’
 ‘Mr Tibbs, a responsible citizen–’
 ‘It’s impossible to get a permit! And you know it!’ David said. ‘You … you just expect us to comply but with no clear method or process. They created all the problems, ignored the warning signs and now we get sanctioned for unlawful possession of a fucking water bottle. Do you know what I want to know? Why aren’t plastic products banned completely? The big polluters. The obesity-peddlers. What about them?’
At the other end of the room, something twinkled. David realised the ambassador was smiling.
‘Here at THOGLIA, the mission isn’t just about sustainability, David,’ she said. ‘It’s just as much about progress and expansion. Innovation. It’s about looking forward, and only occasionally looking back.’
 She stood up, gestured to another door, and walked through. David supposed he was to follow her, and spent a comically long time traversing the grey carpet to the other end of the room and followed the ambassador through the door. A moment later he was looking down into a concrete basin bigger than a football stadium. A sluggish breeze washed over him, tainted with uncountable unwanted odours. Orange peel, drying paint, bin juice, hot styrofoam, chicken carcass; a few he could single out. Trucks were backed up to the edge, roller doors clanking open and closed like tired eyes, as safety-gloved men dragged out the contents and tossed them over the thick beige lip of the basin. Below, the garbage was turning. Slowly, it was draining away. David saw the tips of rotating serrated spikes. A sticky yellow glow cradled everything. The ambassador led him down a staircase below the basin. The noise above was sucked away and the sharp aroma of disinfectant floated upwards. David followed her into a vast room of white floors and white walls, serviced by conveyors descending like shopping centre escalators toward machines with double-jointed limbs and suction cup fingers. A few human supervisors with clipboards observed as tiny packets were assembled, glued and palletised in the thousands.
 ‘Over here, Mr Tibbs.’
 The ambassador gestured not towards her, but to a stainless steel table. It was empty but for one of the small packets. The THOGLIA logo winked up at David. He unpeeled the end of the packet, without thinking. Opening it was very enjoyable. Perfect perforation. A smooth wad, greenish yellow in colour, fell to the table with unexpected weightiness. It did not bounce.
 ‘Go on, David, try it.’ He could feel her breath on his neck.
 ‘Is it from … up there?’
 ‘It doesn’t matter where it comes from, David. Where it ends up, where it serves its purpose and elicits satisfaction – the destination, David, that’s what is important.’
 She was right. Of course she was!
 ‘It’s senseless,’ David said, ‘and it’s beautiful. But what is it?’
 He picked up the tiny piece of gum.
 ‘Don’t question it,’ the ambassador purred. ‘Don’t think about it. Everyone is always worrying and thinking too much these days. Just don’t think. Open your mouth, and chew.’