He opened the bag of tomatoes and started running. These weren't vine-ripened. There was something strangely wrong with the world, something inexplicable. Was it a parallel universe? Was it all just a bad dream? Was it some new New World Order? Was it Tuesday? He shot off at top speed, the badly edited tomatoes fell in slow motion to the ground, smashing into a slightly cracked but very mushy pulp within the bag, just as he (Opened Yoghurt, if you'll allow me to just pick a name for no reason. It's odd that I choose that name, not just because Opened isn't a common first name, nor Yoghurt a popular surname, but because I don't have an opened yoghurt anywhere near me influencing my choice of nomenclature, nor have I seen an opened yoghurt in a long time. Not so long that I have opened yoghurts on my mind - "Ooh I've not seen an opened yoghurt for a long time," - but just a normal length of time so that I don't have opened yoghurts on my mind. It's a stupid name and it's not his name. I don't care what his name was, it doesn't help any in understanding what drove this bittersweet man to drop his tomatoes and run around the corner some far distance away) ran around the corner some far distance away.
"You expect me to clean this shit up? It's your fucking mess, you clean it up, shitfuck," screeched the roadsweeper to no-one in particular. "I'm not paid to pick up your fucking tomatoes slightly cracked, but very pulpy in their bag, and I think it's a fucking liberty that you think that just because I sweep the roads I should pick up your fucking tomatoes as well." The screeching tailed off as it began to hurt his voice, and he slipped gracelessly into resigned mumbling: "It'd be different if they were vine-ripened, I could pretend I was begrudgingly and plottingly tipping my cap to my supposed betters, whilst secretly - as indicated by the plottingly - plotting - as even more indicated by the plottingly - to kill the fuckers and take all their privileges and sharing them out amongst everyone who's still alive. One for me and one for me. One for me and one for me. One for me and one for me. If you think I'm cleaning up these fucking tomatoes you've got another fucking thing coming." He picked up the bag, hoping that there wouldn't be any intentional or unintentional holes in it, dripping all over his nice clean road that you could eat off of if you didn't know the word 'from', and if you didn't have plates or a very clean table, or weren't eating directly from the microwaved plastic tray, and, if you'll excuse the confusing tangent that if you can't keep up with you're too thick/mildly dyslexic - not to take anything away from genuine dyslexia seekers who are loved by all God's children, especially those in Dover - to understand, tossed it in his carty thing that he wheeled with him at all times to save having to make a long trip back each time he came across a fresh bit of litter or dust.
There was a small hole, unbeknownst to the leaders of this great nation who manage to keep up to date with all the pointless day to day detritus of government - foreign policy, what the fuck's that supposed to mean? - but never make the effort to go and look at a road where a bag of tomatoes once lay, crushed and slightly leaking. That just makes me so mad I could gargle. Government for the people, of the people, by the people? You'd be better off if you didn't juggle with handleless chainsaws or chew broken snooker tables. A leak, a small damp patch on the road, a small patch of sticky damp red stuff on the road. First there was one flower from a well-wisher who knew not what had happened, and failed to run a blood test. (A simple blood test to tell that it was vine-ripened negative, and the flowers would never have been left). One flower was quickly outdone by a bunch of garish flowers in garish plastic from someone else who knew not of the ways of leaking tomatoes nor the word 'didn't'. A bunch of flowers and a cheap poem on a card usurped what came before, next a cute teddy bear, then a cute teddy bear laid by a cute child wheeled out by his/her mother/father so that he/she might get on the news as being a wonderfully caring child who knew of and understood the pain and suffering of road accidents, as inculcated by the wonderful mother and/or father.
"Ooh that's a great mother/father to have a son/daughter so caring as that," would think The World Said. "We should pay him/her to look after our child(ren) and raise him/her/them to not be the snotty little shits that we've raised them to be. Maybe we could take our little ironic bundles of joy - bundled up in the boot of the car... first sliced with knives, then bundled and tied up just in case they're not dead and want to wriggle and seek help; only language they understand except a smattering of Japanese they picked up from their Japanese friend, Brian... that little shit irritates the hell out of me with his refusal to speak Japanese or look Japanese whenever I'm around - and get them to leave all their toys for the dead person whose blood's still attracting the flies on that lovely clean road. Maybe we could make our little ironic bundles of joy - bundled up... fucking Brian - write a poem for the dead person too. Would be get on the news then? Does my hair look alright?" The flowers accumulated, the poems, the cards, the teddy bears, the Scalextric, the footballs, the flies. They spilled out on to the functional parts of the road, the cars ran over them, skidding on the rotting petals sometimes, killing children wheeled out, leaving more red, leading to more poems and deaths.
"You expect me to clean up this fucking mess? Fucking forget it. Clean it up yourself you fucking mistakenly compassionate fucks." He tossed everything into his cart, the dead flowers, the teddies, the teeth. He swept and hosed away the tomato juice, the rotten bits of the flowers and the bits of scalp that had been dragged along the road. He wheeled his cart away, mumbling
disparagingly as he went.