Is it impossible to escape the sounds of civilization? I often wonder what it’d take. How far I’d have to travel away from society, into nature, to be away, pure and quiet. But, cars and semis continually buzz and echo through cannons, their engine’s hum stretching across canopies, penetrating forests. Airplanes soaring overhead no matter how long or deep I’ve hiked and traveled away from the parking lot into unvisited nature. A plastic bottle on the trail, a cigarette butt, shopping bags in trees, skittles wrapper, the constant reminder of human’s ugly tendencies.
Then I think, all my things- phone, shoes, clothes, books, bedsheets, camping tent, vehicle- they’ll all be garbage one day. All we have, and all we leave behind will become someone else’s valuables or discarded trash. We are garbage producing creatures. Our lives are a collection of boxes stored away until thrown away. Attics full of trash in transition.
By Charles Denton