In Creative Writing class last year, we had this ex. where you had to describe a garbage can to
interpret character. This was spawned from remembering that exercise and seeing a garbage can shaped like a Cat.
Kitty garbage can (or painting toes)
White and plastic, Kitty is coupled on the ceramic with the also white porcelain toilet, bolted to the left of kitty’s shoulder. I throw my Kleenex, bleeding in red lipstick, into the cut out at the crown of kitty’s head. The crumpled remains of red lips land next to an electric purple plug I wore in my ears at the library last Tuesday. The tail end of a tea bag umbrellas kitty’s almond amber eye. A Chiquita banana sticker dangles off of the slope on kitty’s blushing cheek – a Copa Cabaña girl throwing her hands up to a sweating ceiling (still dewy from my shower).
Hunching over kitty, I bird’s eye other crumpled documents that mummify decaying apple centers and other rotting fruits. Three Q-tips, a web of “mint fresh” butler dental floss, and a pink flip flop whose match I had lost at the gym, fold and poke at one another.
I swipe a bottle of red nail polish off the counter and sink into my crossed legs. Angling my large toe towards me, I slap red on a bare nail. While reaching back to dunk the brush back in more glossy red, my hand from under me slips. Ribbons of red flit through the air and splat and glott the white ceramic. My head pounds from the prospect of spending hours on hands and knees scouring tiles and huffing nail polish remover. I look up at kitty. Her whiskers slope downwards into a frowning mustache. The light slips off of her circular cheeks, leaving the centre of her face dark.
