By
Jitters Inkly
Forward and Annotations by
P.H. Wiser, PhD.
FORWARD
To my understanding, [PLACEHOLDER] — and by extension, the Place — is a dimension that exists in all places of the universe at once and yet, none of the places of the universe at once. It exists in the vast amounts of empty space which are in all atoms. If there is indeed a creator of our universe, it's as if they were almost done with the universe, but were really tired and so cobbled a temporary solution together and forgot about it.
How anyone travels to and from [PLACEHOLDER] is a mystery to me, but very difficult, I'm sure. Somehow, I keep receiving these fascinating plays from Jitters Inkly.
And speaking of interdimensional travel, this one certainly deals with that, albeit regarding a subject many in polite society find taboo — waste.
Here, trapped on Earth, we shove waste into far away landfills so we don't have to think about it. There is a primary waste dumping location in the Place known as Hemorrhoid, and the sludge there is so toxic that it frequently belches literal demons into existence.
This story does not concern Hemorrhoid or demons — thank goodness — but it still does concern waste. Apparently it is not uncommon for waste from our universe to fall into the PLACEHOLDER dimension.
As always, Jitters Inkly brings their trademark warmth and insight to the subject. I do hope you find this naturally occurring phenomenon in this unnatural Place as fascinating as I do.
P.H. Wiser, PhD.
CAST
IT WHICH IS CONDEMNED TO NARRATE: Genderless. Ageless. Demon.
ARMUR GILDT: Female. 24. Human. Kinda just coasting through life. Girlfriend of Saffe.
SAFFE ANSOUN: Female. 28. Human. Girlfriend of Armur. Rich, lazy jerk.
CLIM SOFF: Female. 39. Human. Place-renowned mountain climber.
GI VUP: Male. 32. Human. Special cleaner, Grunt Work rank. Deeply unhappy to be here.
VARIOUS OTHERS: ELDERLY WOMAN, LOUNGING MAN, DRINKING WOMAN.
<Annotations by P.H. Wiser appear right justified, italicized, in these sorts of brackets.>
SCENE 1: SAFE INSIDE SNOOTYFIELD'S LUXURY RENTALS
It Which is Condemned to Narrate:
Armur and Saffe sit on a couch in their apartment
While the chaos outside goes on and on.
Saffe:
(half-asleep)
Can you turn up the volume?
Narrator:
The sounds of an action cartoon known as
Sam the Doof
Already fills the whole room.
<Sam the Doof is basically an anime. Closest comparison would be Dragonball Z, but much, much gorier, and with an odd fixation on the main character's eyes which point in opposing directions.>
Armur:
You're not even watching.
Saffe:
Yes I am.
Armur:
You've watched this season like, twenty times. I'm turning it off —
Armur reaches for the remote.
Saffe:
Don't.
She doesn't.
Narrator:
Though the volume is up high
Chaotic sounds still come through the window.
Armur turns the TV off.
Saffe:
Hey!
Armur:
We should do something.
Saffe:
We were watching TV. That's something.
Armur:
No... about... the trash.
Narrator:
That's right
Trash!
This entire neighborhood of the Place
Is the recipient of a dimensional dumpster dump
Trash bags full of foul things from dimensions unknown
Fall into this neighborhood called Hodgepodge
Well... fall isn't quite it
Being interdimensional trash, it just sort of... bursts out of things
Suddenly, the toaster may disgorge a dozen trash bags into your abode
Then the microwave
Or even...
Other people.
The sight when another person is the epicenter of a dump
Is quite horrific
Though not as horrific
As the smell.
These disgorgings tend to bury the object in piles of distended garbage bags
Slick with dubious substances
Luckily for the couple Armur and Saffe
They live in the Snootyfield's Luxury Rentals.
<The Snootyfield family has not been seen in several decades. They got so fabulously wealthy that a demon by the name of Such That Perpetually Has a Poor Credit Score captured them all and is forcing them to use their fabulous wealth to get him to at least a 600. This has bankrupted the Snootyfield family several times. It is an especially astounding conundrum given that credit scores don’t properly exist in the Place.>
Their apartment and themselves were all sprayed down with Swelll branded UltraClean shortly before the dimensional dumpster dump
Which, on top of keeping things smelling nice and not in need of being washed or showered or wiped down in any way
Also prevents sprayed objects from becoming dimensional dumpster dump vectors.
It's an annual perk of living in Snootyfield's Luxury Rentals
UltraClean lasts for about a month
Or until the recipient is cut
Something about the way the chemicals interact with blood just deactivates it.
The dimensional dumpster dump has been going on for about a week
And will continue for a little while longer.
Armur:
We should do something.
Saffe:
Dude, that's gross. Turn the TV back on.
Long silence
Armur turns the TV back on.
Narrator:
A loud shriek carries over the loud sounds coming out of the TV.
Armur:
Oh my god...
Narrator:
She runs to the window
Amongst the numerous trash piles
There is an elderly woman on a clear patch of sidewalk
Beside a pile of distended garbage bags
With a leash sticking out from underneath.
Elderly Woman:
Floofsickle! My poor Floofsickle! He is buried under this mountain of trash! Won't someone help?
Armur:
We should help her!
Saffe:
Dude, no. What if someone threw away a knife? Or like... acid or something? Come on babe, watch more Sam the Doof with me. We can wait the dump out together babe.
Armur:
Her poor dog, her poor dog...
Narrator:
A woman clad in rubber cleaning supplies
Who Armur recognizes from her building
Her name is Clim
She springs over towards the trash pile which buries the dog
And starts peppily chucking waste over her shoulder.
Elderly Woman:
Ooooh thank you, thank you!
Clim:
I got you!
Narrator:
Clim reaches into the remaining trash pile and retrieves the wagging, tiny Floofsickle.
Elderly Woman:
Oh, thank you, thank you! It's so great when those who've been sprayed with UltraClean help out in a time of need.
Clim:
I was mountain climbing the day Snootyfield's was sprayed. I simply thrive on the challenge and the danger!
Narrator:
Clim winks through her thick goggles
Then runs over to where a man was just smothered by trash disgorged from a zwiggle tree.
Armur:
Oh wow...
Saffe:
Did the special cleaners do their damn job?
Armur:
No... it was Clim... you know, the famous mountaineer with a TV show who lives on the second floor.
Saffe:
Ugh, her show is so boring. No one's esophagus even gets punctured by one of those climbing pick thingies! Not like in Sam the Doof where —
Armur:
She missed UltraClean day.
Saffe:
Cool. Can you be quiet? This next part is badass.
Narrator:
Armur leans against the window
Feeling ashamed and guilty
That she doesn't go out there and help clear trash while she has the means and safety to do so
Meanwhile there's Clim, springing into the fray
Even though she is at risk of being the vector of a dimensional dumpster dump
When that happens she'll be at the mercy of the special cleaners
And the special cleaners are...
A little run down, to say the least.
SCENE 2: SPECIAL CLEANER MAKING THE ROUNDS
Narrator:
In fact, the first day of the dimensional dumpster dump
The special cleaners went around to all the buildings in Hodgepodge
One named Gi knocked on the door of Armur and Saffe's place
A hunched, sallow-eyed man in a filthy body smock and special cleaning gloves
Who looked deeply unhappy to be there.
Even his clipboard looked deeply unhappy to be there.
Gi:
I am deeply unhappy to be here.
Armur:
Is there something we can —
Saffe:
(shouting from the couch)
This whole building was UltraCleaned. We were UltraCleaned.
Gi:
I just gotta check, man. Just doing my rounds. My name is special cleaner Gi Vup, rank of Grunt Work. Cool, that is a check on number four-oh-two...
Saffe:
The whole neighborhood should be UltraCleaned if you ask me.
I mean, putting all of Hodgepodge under quarantine? Like, come on. That's excessive.
Gi:
UltraClean is so ridiculously expensive, man. I don't know how this building affords it.
<It is comforting and depressing to know that our world is not the only one suffering from gross income inequality and austerity spending.>
Saffe:
Can I visit my mother, man? My bros and I made birthday plans.
Gi:
We can't risk contaminating the rest of the Place. Deal with —
Saffe:
Whatever dude.
Narrator:
Saffe shut the door in Gi's face.
SCENE 3: THE DISGORGING OF THE GRAND 100
Narrator:
In fact, now, Armur can see Gi out the window
Gi, a special cleaner Grunt Work rank in his special cleaning gloves
With no sense of urgency, places his hands on one of the many many many many many trash piles littering Hodgepodge
Special cleaning liquid glops out of the gloves
Coats the trash bag
Which itself becomes the blue viscous special cleaning liquid
A puddle now in the middle of the street
Another team of special cleaners walks about Hodgepodge with special cleaning vacuum tubes
To guzzle away the liquid on the ground.
The special cleaners with the special cleaning vacuums inch forward with no sense of urgency, groaning as they do so
Way too overworked and underpaid to be dealing with this shit.
There is a great rumble.
A horrid stench.
Armur gasps
A special cleaner drops her vacuum
The Grand 100 apartment building across the street
Which is a hundred stories tall
Is victim of the dimensional dump.
The whole building.
Only a couple of trash bags and stray bits of food scrap pop out of windows at first
But then all at once, massive amounts of trash a extrude from the Grand 100
The streets for a whole block are smothered in trash bags
A great trash mountain stands where the building is.
Armur:
Those poor people!
Saffe finally goes to the window.
Saffe:
Man. Sure am glad that ain't us.
(pecks Armur on the cheek)
See? Perks to dating someone who comes from money. Bet they all wish they could afford UltraClean right now.
Narrator:
Armur is frozen at the window
Special Cleaners wade through the trash towards the Grand 100
But not fast enough
The stench alone of the trash will kill the citizens of the Grand 100
The ones resilient enough to survive the stench will suffocate.
Armur:
I have to go out there!
Saffe:
Don't be stupid, hon. What if you cut yourself on the teeniest shard of glass? You don't want to lose your UltraClean and be dimensional dumped on, do you?
Armur:
No... I guess you're right...
Clim:
It sure is grand that I have all this mountain climbing equipment!
Narrator:
Clim bounces along the top of the trash bags in the street
Trash bags which reach up to the second floor of Snootyfield's Luxury Rentals
Starts scaling the side of trash mountain
Artfully wielding her climbing picks and spike boots
Making it look effortless, she scurries to the top of the Grand 100
Not stopping to rest, Clim tosses the trash bags from up top
Revealing the concrete tip of the building.
She clears trash bags from in front of a top story window
A family of four climbs out of the window
And topples down the side of the trash mountain.
Clim:
Woooo!
Armur:
(jaw-dropped, breathless, a little aroused)
Wow...
Narrator:
But then...
Clim coughs.
She pulls down her protective mask
Fish bones fall out of it.
Clim:
Oh drat.
Narrator:
Clim's jaw unhinges
And distended trash bags vomit out of her mouth
Until she is buried underneath mountains of trash
Stuck on the roof of the Grand 100
It's too heavy for her to get out of it.
Armur opens up the window:
Armur:
Someone help her! Someone help all of them!
Gi:
Yeah, we're on it. We're going as fast as we can.
Narrator:
The special cleaners meander towards the Grand 100 with no sense of urgency
Liquidating a trash bag here and there with special cleaning liquid.
Narrator:
Saffe shuts the window.
Armur:
Saffe — !
Narrator:
Saffe closes the blinds.
Saffe:
Come on, you missed the most badass part from this season of Sam the Doof.
Narrator:
Saffe returns to the couch, rewinds the show a bit.
Armur is distressed.
Saffe:
(patting beside her on the sofa)
Hey. Come on. Don't get involved.
Narrotor:
Armur sits.
The badass part of the Sam the Doof continues
Saffe oohs and ahs and points at the screen
Armur looks like she's staring at it intently
But she can't stop thinking about all of those people living in the Grand 100
Who will surely be killed soon by stench poisoning or suffocation
Families, people living alone, pets...
And she thinks of Clim
All alone on the rooftop.
She knew she was in danger, but she helped anyway
She helped anyway.
Armur springs to her feet.
Saffe:
Hey! Come on! Sam was just about to —
Narrator:
Armur leaves the apartment.
SCENE 4: ULTRACLEAN SOLUTION
Narrator:
Armur is in the lobby of Snootyfield's Luxury Rentals
A handful of the posh sorts who use this as a second home lounge about
Sipping alcohol worth more than a truck full of organ transplants.
Armur:
I'm going out there to help those people! Who's with me?
Lounging Man:
What ew, no.
Drinking Woman:
Are you kidding me? I might cut myself and the UltraClean will stop working — I owe it to everyone to wring the full use out of my UltraClean!
Armur:
Useless...
Narrator:
Armur walks out of the diamond plated doors of Snootyfield's Luxury Rentals.
With the trash in the street piled two stories high
The only reason trash wasn't blocking her way
Was because of the UltraClean sprayed on the building.
Armur walks straight into the two story wall of trash —
The UltraClean bounces it away from her
A five foot sphere of protection from the nasty garbage surrounds Armur.
The trash parts, allowing her to cross the street
Toward the trash mountain covering the Grand 100.
An pair of special cleaning gloves lands at her feet.
Gi:
Hey!
Narrator:
Gi pops over the edge of the trash wall.
Gi:
I dropped my gloves — can you toss 'em back up here, man?
Narrator:
Armur picks up the gloves
Puts them on
Waves at Gi.
She walks into the Grand 100.
Gi:
Man... they're gonna put me on Hemorrhoid clean-up for that…
<I cannot imagine a worse fate. The Hemorrhoid district of the Place is beyond foul and any waste that somehow finds its way outside the many many miles wide, long, and deep containment vat must be treated with the same delicacy and fear as stray plutonium.>
Narrator:
The stench inside the Grand 100 is unbearable
Hundreds of residents are in the lobby
As soon as they see the doors open, they flood out
Crying for joy to have clean-ish air in their lungs.
Armur takes the elevator for the top floor
It propels upwards at such a high velocity
Armur is uncertain as to whether the sick feeling inside her is due to the trash
Or the extreme lurch of the elevator.
With a ding, she's on the hundredth floor.
She hurries up the stairs to the roof exit —
Armur emerges, sees the pile of Clim's garbage
Armur runs to it —
And steps on a very tiny shard of broken glass.
Armur:
Ah!
(realizing)
No... no no no...
Narrator:
She hobbles beside Clim's trash pile, gets right up next to it
But it doesn't fly away from her UltraClean
It has been fully deactivated by the tiny, tiny shard of glass.
She tries to shoulder the distended trash bags off of Clim
But they are so heavy
It's amazing that Clim is able to move any of these bulky things.
Armur gazes at the special cleaning gloves she acquired
Has no idea how to use them
But places them on a distended trash bag.
Nothing comes out.
Armur:
Come on come on... I'm coming for you, Clim!
Clim:
Mmmph!
Armur:
What am I supposed to do... is there a button...?
Narrator:
Blue special cleaning liquid leaks out of the gloves.
Armur:
(startled gasp, then:)
Yes... yes!
Narrator:
The liquid slathers Clim's trash pile
Which liquidizes
The blue viscous liquid oozes over the roof's edge
Like a tiny, slow-moving, cleansing waterfall
Coats a more trash on the way down
Creating a grand cascading effect for the trash mountain around the Grand 100
The whole pillar of waste dissolves in gloppy blue liquid.
Clim:
(gasping for air)
Ooooooooh boy, that smells.
Armur:
Clim... Clim!
Clim:
Hey! Armur, right? We're in the same building... you and, uh... you're Saffe's girlfriend, right.
Armur:
Yeah. Why are we the only people in Snootyfield's doing anything? You'd think the others would help out what with the UltraClean...
Clim:
(shrugs)
The people in Snootyfield's suck.
(beat)
'Cept for you, Ar.
Armur:
Oh... I suck... I didn't do anything for so long...
Clim:
Well, you're doing something now — hey, did a napkin just come out of your nose?
Narrator:
Armur is now the site of the dimensional dumpster dump
And she begins the unpleasent process of disgorging trash from her body
Clim quickly heaves these trash bags over the roofside
Unburying Armur.
Armur:
(gagging)
Thanks.
Clim:
Don't mention it.
Armur:
I don't know how helpful I can be anymore without the UltraClean...
Clim:
I mean, it'll be a little more risky, but you managed to snag yourself some of those snazzy gloves, so... Whaddya say? Help me clear out what's left in the Grand 100?
Narrator:
Armur grins
They do.
And as the dimensional dumpster dump continues to go on for another week
The two of them work in tandem to aid those all over Hodgepodge.
Armur breaks up with Saffe
Saffe doesn't care much
As soon as Armur left to help the Grand 100
Saffe embarked upon a torrid affair with a stuck-up posh lady down the hall in Snootyfield's
Saffe contracts gold-plated crabs from this stuck-up posh lady.
When all is said and done
The special cleaners have their budget slashed again
Gi is spared Hemorrhoid waste duty, only because the Fountain O' Exotic Barfs at an amusement park springs a leak
And he and the other special cleaners are dispatched for this quite heinous emergency.
Armur and Clim's efforts are overlooked
Whatever
Commendations don't mean much.
I'm told Armur and Clim spend most of their time at a cabin atop Mount Romanicslope.
So if you, dear friends, happen to be the beneficiary of UltraClean during a dimensional dumpster dump
Under those highly specific circumstances
Do not hoard this gift to yourself.
I'm sure there's a way to extrapolate that lesson further
But that is your duty, not mine.