As the wind whipped over the top of Mount Trashcan, my twelve-year-old son powered on. He continued to pile and pile, to go on making the mountain higher and higher. How high could the trash mountain get before the summit broke through the atmosphere?
Three feet? Four? My son, my boy, was determined to find out. An eagle nested on the North peak.
After dinner, the trash was still a small hill, but my son knew the potential it had within. If only one believed, great things could happen. It could end up on the doorstep of Heaven.
“Hey, after dinner, take out the trash,” I told him.
“Yes, Father,” he replied. “I shall grow that mountain. I believe!”
“Um, I didn’t say that. I said take out the trash.”
“Faith, Father! One only requires faith!”
I walked away, confused by his dedication. His sister and he cleaned up the table and the mountain started to grow. Napkins, a pizza box twisted into architectural greatness. An apple core even though we didn’t have apples for dinner but my youngest is being a butthole about dinner.
All of it went into the trash and the mountain grew. Soon, the lid to the trash can fell off with a thunderous bang.
“Dude, seriously, take out the trash,” I said.
“It’s the foundation, Father! The foundation is too weak! We need more and by God, we shall have it!”
He plunged more garbage into the can, squishing down the new with the old. Eggshells from breakfast, chip bags from lunch, a squirrel from the backyard. With the power of mighty Hercules, he pushed and it became compacted. The foundation grew into the eighth wonder of the world!
It was too much for me. The sight, the pure holiness of it, shown with the light of a thousand ruined juice boxes. I walked away, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. We began to clean up the living room.
The room had seen better days. Over two months we have spent so much time there. We have come together as a family. We planted the seeds for what would become the great trash mountain. Days and days of refuse accumulated. A popcorn bag from last night’s movie. The dog’s broken toy. A 1984 Dodge minivan that had somehow parked itself in our home.
“Ok, seriously, you need to change the trash. We can’t stuff anymore in there. It’s going to fall over,” I told my boy after another trip to his mecca.
“Heretic!” he screamed at me. “I shall create the greatest trash mountain the world has seen. And when it reaches its full height, I shall know the world and know myself!”
“I think you are taking your little joke too far.”
“Quiet, Jezebel! I have no time for your words.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I told him.
“Harlot!”
“I don’t think you know what that means.”
The trash pile grew and grew and grew. Poets and bards began to come to our home and compose epics in its honor. My boy got himself a staff from somewhere. He threw his older sister in. The mountain became, dare I say, glorious.
But like all things that reach too far, that are engineered in hubris of man, the mountain had reached its limits. The Tower of Babylon fell and with it, my son’s dreams. It came crashing down and the house shook. Ceiling popcorn fluttered down like white snow. A sherpa was caught in the avalanche. And there, at my boy’s feet, laid his greatest failure.
“I told you. You should have taken out the trash,” I said.
My boy wept and tried to walk away.
“Not so fast, buck-o. Get the broom and get on it. Clean this up and take out the trash. I’m not going to tell you again.”
My son spent the evening surrounded by his trash pile; the once-great creation that was never meant to be. And at night, I heard him whisper, “Again. Tomorrow we will try again!”
A blackbird cawed.
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