These forlorn remnants are all that's left of a garbage bag that somehow fell victim to an accident at the corner of Ritter Road and Route 353. Bruised and broken, the bag lay beside the road, hoping against hope to be retrieved; but no grieving owner came looking for it. No good Samaritan sprang to its rescue.
Days went by, and the bag, exposed to the elements, soon died of its injuries. It lay where it had fallen for weeks, then months. Nature took its course, and the bag finally burst, scattering its decomposing entrails around the landscape.
Not long ago, someone mowed the area, evidently running right over the bag's carcass and further distributing its body parts.
Article Photos
Trash left at the corner of Route 353 and Ritter Road has been abandoned, mowed over and forgotten.
P-J photo by Arvilla Pritchard
Perhaps the bag's bereaved owners can still be traced. Judging from the residue, they were fast food connoisseurs, with a remarkable appetite for canned spaghetti and Banquet chicken breast patties.
A closer analysis of the corpse (which, in the absence of rubber gloves, this reporter was reluctant to undertake) might reveal even more pertinent information. Forensic clues could be unearthed that would enable authorities to finally return the deceased to the bosom of its family.
Although many observed the stray bag's passing, no one has stepped forward to give it a decent burial. Perhaps delicate jurisdictional issues stood in the way - one agency not wanting to step on another's toes - that sort of thing.
Meanwhile the lonely cadaver still lies by the road, denied last rites, but still awaiting final deliverance to that great landfill in the sky.