Trashcan

They called me Trashcan because that’s where they’d put all their candy, when they were completely done with it, and had had their fill. They didn’t want the candy and nobody else did. So they saw me and, as often hap- pens, they were pretty keen on getting it ungently, regardlessly inside my body.
They’d swing my mouth open like a lid, my jaw and the top of my skull were connected as if by a door hinge. But that’s because in the special case of me the jaw and skull were attached by a door hinge. It’s made of brass, I think. I would occasionally position myself between two mirrors in order to get a sense of my hinge.
It was the way I was born. I was meant to be a trashcan since always. Because of God or a force of some great standing, able to move creation in its mysterious ways.
They had the media people come in their media truck. They opened up my mouth in the usual way, threw the candy in there. They said, “See?” And the media people told them, “We see, all right, but it’s still not a story. That could have been put there by anybody, the hinge. And do you know only 10 percent of what we call ‘news’ actually sees airtime? Gets attention?” They drove away to some other man’s head with a more interesting thing happened to it.
“All you’re good for is our unwanted candy, Trashcan.” Somebody threw a stone! I caught it in my mouth, and everyone laughed and followed suit. They all threw subsequent stones. That was the day a new game was started.
But don’t worry about Trashcan. I’m getting heavier and heavier with each passing game. and pretty soon they’ll want to think up a new one.