DUMPING ON THE COMMON...

Common Woman…

She low-geared her Ford Fiesta

Along the diagonal lane

Which divided the local church,

From the natural Common’s terrain.

I became aware of an engine’s strain,

Glancing over my shoulder to see

The dull, blue LAB7X vehicle

Draw up several yards from me.

This seemed peculiar, the vehicle had stopped

On a small exposed car-park

At 6.55 on a cool, cloudy morning,

Up even before the lark…

A bespectacled, plaid-skirted ancient

Reached onto the car’s rear-seat,

Lifting up a loaded carrier bag,

So typically knotted and neat.

She scuttled across to a rubbish basket

And furtively dropped her bag in,

Then hustled back to her waiting jalopy,

Bearing a self-satisfied, evil grin.

A struggle ensued to manoeuvre her car

Back onto the Common’s road,

But she negotiated the thirty yards or so,

To her not quite so humble abode.

Strangely fascinated by this eccentric, 

I puzzled over her behaviour rash,

Wondering why her bag had not been dumped

Into her usual household trash.

Were these doggy droppings, or scooped up poops?

Or even human remains?

Or were they drugs to be collected,

Not for disposal, but dispersal in veins?

As each day arrived, around 6.55,

The ritual was repeated;

The parking, the leaning, the dumping, the escaping,

Just whom did she think she had cheated?

An inquisitive nature got the better of me

And one day I approached ‘the place’,

Fingered the carrier, nervously peeked inside,

As my pulse began pounding and raced.

Visions of flesh, limbs, gristle and blood

Filled my spinning mind as I spied,

But all I found were an egg-box and rubbish,

Perhaps she had nothing to hide…

Same time, same place, she repeated her moves,

Defying the authorities,

Secretly dumping those neatly packed bags

 Then escaping with the greatest of ease.

There were variations, Tuesdays mostly,

When the dustmen were due near the church;

Perhaps she surveyed what was to be collected,

A weekly check, a neighbourhood search.

I saw her on weekends in the service road, too,

Wriggling in her driver’s seat,

Or fiddling around at the back of her car,

Checking wheels, bending low in the street.

Always the same parking spot on those days though,

I was really confused about that;

Maybe she really was bagging up body parts,

Or dissecting the vicar’s cat…   

I even noticed, one critical day,

Her ‘Somerfield’ bag was not to be seen;

Was I near to scuppering her plot?

For a ‘Boots’ bag had been used at the scene…

I felt like a Private Investigator

And I spied on her regularly,

Watched her house, her car and many of her moves,

In rain, or mist, part-hidden by a tree.

The evidence was on film and in the basket,

So I left her a note for my sin:

Attached to the receptacle, warning not to dump there

But use her own dustbin to shove it all in… 

Pete Ray

(Updated January 2016)

I used to walk my daughter’s dog on Hodge Hill Common, the only remaining piece of common land left in Birmingham, each morning at around 7am and the above ritual was repeated habitually by this odd, elderly lady. 

I found torn letters and pieces of photographs in one of her carriers, but no body parts or shady artefacts. 

Shame, really… 

LAB7X

I saw it first,

Chugging,

Lugging an older female

Across the Common,

Delaying, 

Allaying fears of overtaking.

I saw her then,

Hunched,

Bunched against a steering column

Over the Common,

Peering,

Appearing tensed, eyes on the road.

I saw it finally,

Exhausting,

Idling on its driveway

On the Common,

Confiding,

Hiding its lack-lustre blue…

Pete Ray

January 2016 

A woman who drove her car around, then back onto Hodge Hill Common in Birmingham, where her house was situated, only to pause and place a daily bag of trash into a public bin… I thought maybe that she was disposing of body parts…