Prickles

On the way to the newsagents he realised he'd left his gloves in the car, so he took a detour on the way back along to the where it was parked. Retrieving them from the driver's door pocket, he noticed a crushed plastic bottle between the car and the wall, and turning, surveyed the rubbish through the railings. Cans and bottles strewn in the undergrowth. As he walked back to his house, he imagined each anonymous individual act. The finishing of a drink before getting into the car, the bottle tossed through the railings. It seemed so alien to anything he would do, that anger flared within him at the thoughtlessness, the ugliness, the degeneracy of the behaviour. Who would do such a thing? Fumbling for his keys at the front door he noticed how filthy his wheelie bin had become. Scarcely pausing, he retrieved a scrubbing brush from the kitchen cupboard, filled the basin with hot soapy water and set to, scrubbing and scrubbing, his lined faced frowning and concerned, lost in thought, aware of nothing in the world but this task as the water cascaded over his boots and down the path.