The black bin bag of time
The black bin bag of time,
sweeps across the city streets,
plundering the beauty,
and making wonderous the grotesque.
Harry Pi and the Black Bin Bag of Time
Nobody was certain the detective existed.
Least of all the detective.
Harry Pi first met him sitting backwards on a bench overlooking the Bay.
The man's coat was grey.
His notebook was blank.
His business card simply read:
DETECTIVE Existential.
Underneath, in smaller letters:
"Specialising in cases that may not have happened."
Harry sat beside him.
"Are you a detective?"
Detective Existential considered the question for several minutes.
"Sometimes."
"Who employs you?"
"I've never been able to find out."
"Where do you live?"
"I'm not entirely convinced I do."
Harry liked him immediately.
A week later the city began to lose things.
Not cars.
Not wallets.
Not people.
More important things.
The smell of bread from old bakeries.
The excitement of finding a forgotten twenty-pound note.
The particular shade of purple that appears in the sky just before sunset.
One afternoon an entire generation forgot the chorus of a famous song.
Nobody noticed until somebody tried singing it.
The song simply stopped part the way through.
As though something had eaten the memory.
At first Harry suspected politicians.
Then accountants.
Then social media.
Eventually he spotted the real culprit.
A gigantic black bin bag drifting over the rooftops.
Harry Pi knew three things for certain.
First, Cardiff rain could fall upwards if it felt sufficiently Welsh.
Second, every mystery eventually became a maths problem.
Third, nobody should trust a black bin bag larger than a cathedral.
It was 3:14 a.m.
Harry stood beneath a flickering streetlamp on Wind Street, watching the thing drift through the sleeping city.
The black bin bag was enormous.
It sailed above the rooftops without wind, swallowing fragments of existence as it passed. A couple's laughter disappeared into its crinkling folds. A mural faded into grey brick. A rose garden became a patch of mud. A song playing from an open window vanished midway through a chord.
Yet oddly, wherever the bag touched rubbish, the rubbish became fascinating.
Broken televisions glowed with impossible constellations.
Discarded shopping trolleys sang opera.
A heap of soggy takeaway cartons assembled itself into a magnificent silver palace.
The beautiful was being stolen.
The ugly was becoming wondrous.
Harry consulted his notebook.
The front page read:
"THE BLACK BIN BAG OF TIME.
CURRENT STATUS: BEING RATHER TROUBLESOME."
A shadow detached itself from a doorway.
It was Detective Existential.
"The situation is worsening," said Existential.
"I noticed," said Harry.
"The bag has already consumed seven sunsets, fourteen first kisses, and an entire collection of jazz records."
Harry gasped.
"Not the jazz records."
"I'm afraid so."
A silence followed.
Then both investigators removed their hats.
By dawn the pair had tracked the bag to the abandoned Taj Mahal Cinema on the hill overlooking the city.
The giant black shape hovered above the building like a storm cloud made of refuse sacks.
Harry expected a confrontation.
Perhaps ancient magic.
Possibly quantum physics.
Instead he heard crying.
Very faint.
Very lonely.
The bin bag was crying.
Harry blinked.
"That's unexpected."
The bag sniffled.
A torn receipt flew out.
Then an old photograph.
Then a dead sunflower.
"Why are you crying?" called Harry.
The bag shuddered.
A voice emerged from somewhere inside.
"No one has ever asked."
"I just did."
The enormous sack sagged slightly.
"I am Time," it said. "Everyone blames me."
"Fair point."
"I take youth."
"You do."
"I take beauty."
"Also true."
"I take memories."
"Occasionally."
The bag let out a tremendous rustling sigh.
"Nobody thanks me for the things I save."
Harry frowned.
"Save?"
"I carry every forgotten thing. Every abandoned toy. Every lost photograph. Every failed dream. Every ugly object nobody wanted."
The bag opened slightly.
Inside Harry saw galaxies constructed from lost buttons.
Kingdoms built from broken clocks.
Cathedrals made from discarded teddy bears.
Millions of rejected things transformed into miracles.
The detective suddenly understood.
The black bin bag wasn't evil.
It was lonely.
It had spent eternity collecting everything nobody loved.
"No wonder you're miserable," said Harry.
The bag froze.
"No wonder?" it asked.
"No wonder."
Nobody had ever agreed with the Bin Bag of Time before.
Harry sat cross-legged on the cinema roof.
"Listen," he said. "You don't destroy beauty."
"I don't?"
"No. Beauty changes shape and you carry it forward."
The bag rustled uncertainly.
Harry continued.
"You don't make the grotesque wondrous either."
"I don't?"
"You reveal the wonder that was already there."
The bag grew noticeably smaller.
Existential adjusted the brim of his hat.
"Interesting," he muttered.
Harry smiled.
"Every cracked thing tells a story. Every lost thing mattered to somebody. You're not a monster."
The bag shrank again.
"You really think that?"
"I do."
For the first time in history, the Black Bin Bag of Time received a compliment.
Then another.
And another.
Harry spent hours talking.
About old guitars that improved with age.
About wrinkles that marked lives well lived.
About weathered buildings.
About blues songs recorded through broken amplifiers.
About faded record covers and scratched vinyl.
Each kind word made the bag smaller.
By noon it was the size of a car.
By evening it was the size of a suitcase.
By sunset it was no bigger than a lunchbox.
Finally it landed gently in Harry's hands.
The little bag looked up at him.
"What happens now?"
Harry smiled.
"You take a holiday."
The bag released a tiny, happy crinkle.
Somewhere across the city the stolen laughter returned.
Flowers bloomed.
Murals regained their colour.
Jazz records reappeared in dusty collections.
The sunset blazed brighter than it had for decades.
Existential lit a celebratory pipe filled with essence of blues.
"Case closed. I'll take it from here."
Existential tucked the miniature Bin Bag of Time into his coat pocket.
When Harry turned to reply he found himself sitting backwards on a bench overlooking the Bay. Alone but existentially satisfied.
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