The Department of Sanitation by Kelly Harding

I’m in Sanitation now. Used to work in daytime TV advertising, so I suppose you think that’s fitting. Production to cleanup, but it’s still dealing in crap, right?

It’s not your garden-variety, toilet-bowl sanitation, mind you. That job’s for the folks in the Penance Division. Poor fools with spines too straight to bend. That’s where Liv would be now, if she was still here. But she was too brave to survive. Had too much goddam backbone to get on her knees. She’d insisted love couldn’t be a sin, but that’s not what the Good Book says. Apparently our love was an abomination. They shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. Leviticus something verse something.

And the good folks of the New Day, our duly elected officials, have come to see God’s Law fulfilled. According to them, the Book is not open to interpretation. Apparently the Big Guy said so himself. Not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Funny what people choose when they’re afraid.

It was in the first month of the Cleansing that the Enforcers pulled us into the street outside our little yellow townhouse. They had the grace to give us a chance to confess and repent, which I did. But for Liv, it was one more chance to fight for love and say ‘fuck you’, so they doused her in petrol and turned her into a candle with a Bic lighter. If she disgraces her father, she must be burned in the fire. Or something like that. 

They’d made me watch, to prove I was truly reformed. And I did. Kept my eyes on her the whole time. She was a fire that danced and screamed and floundered. “May the Lord forgive her,” I’d said. That seemed to please them. Judge me if you like, but that’s how I’m still here. If they can’t bend you, they’ll break you. Or burn you, in Liv’s case. 

They’d made me ‘clean up the mess’. Their words, not mine. I had to go back inside our home to get our Dustbuster vacuum, and a shovel from our garden, and the extra-large plastic bags we’d used for cleaning up the leaves in Autumn. She was a contortion of gnarled black limbs in a pile of ash in the road. She looked like the chicken pieces we’d forgotten on the campfire that time we’d gone to Pennwood Park and gotten distracted by the sunset. She wasn’t Liv anymore. 

The only thing left to recognize in the mess was the heart-shaped locket I’d given her on our first anniversary. Unoriginal, I know, but she was sentimental like that. She’d put a tiny picture of the two of us inside, split apart to occupy each frame. It was the first photo we’d taken as a couple. She’s pulling a face, scrunching her nose and baring her teeth like a beautiful rabid rabbit, and I’m just smiling stupidly, a schoolgirl in love. The locket was fused shut by the heat of the flames, but I managed to dislodge it from the charred heap, and I slipped it into my boot when the Enforcers weren’t looking. I’ve carried it with me ever since, a painful little pebble in my shoe. My little secret. My sin. 

But I digress. I was telling you about working in Sanitation. It’s not a bad gig, really, considering the alternatives. We’re an efficient little team, a sort of clean-up crew. We wait on the sidelines while the Enforcers do their bit. Then we swoop in and scour the homes of the repentant to give them a chance to live clean lives and redeem themselves in the eyes of the Lord. We remove temptations and false idols – condoms, books, bacon, beard trimmers, that sort of thing. State-sanctioned spiritual sanitation. A deluxe-wash, power-clean of the conscience, if you will. Department of Sanitation: keeping your soul clean and fresh since 2035. 

And here’s the icing on the shit-cake. If we happen stumble on evidence of a more deep-rooted sin, say a copy of Buddhist scriptures, or a locket of forbidden love, we have a duty to bring it to the attention of an Enforcement Officer so they can deal with the subject more… thoroughly. You have to do that, from time to time, lest you want them to suspect you of a waning conviction. You’d be surprised what you’re capable of when you’re cornered. Unless you’re like Liv. Or, especially if you’re like Liv. 

But I’m still here, and she’s not. She’s locked away in a little heart-shaped locket in my boot. I’m scared one day I’ll step too hard and it’ll crack open like a wound. 

Kelly Harding is a writer, educator and artist. Born and raised in South Africa, she now lives in New York City and works for a non-profit that advances sustainability in schools. This is her debut fiction publication.  

24 September 2021