by Laton Carter
Now I know what song the garbage trucks in Taipei are playing all the damn time.
No, not Beethoven. Not Für Elise. The other one—A Maiden’s Prayer. Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska. The internet says she had a hit with this song in 1856. Apparently musicologists have reviled the composition—a dreadful example of 19th century musical sentimentality—ever since. Still, people love it. They separate their recycles. They throw their bags of refuse into the back of the little yellow truck while, over and over, the maiden prays from the truck’s loudspeakers. And just when you think she might be done, all your bags properly disposed, the maiden has a little more. She’s on repeat.
The island of Taiwan is one of the world’s leading countries for recycling, converting more than 50% of its post-consumer waste into recyclable material—in part because, or presumably because, it was someone’s idea to install classical music as an alert system for the arrival of the garbage collector. People gather on the street when they hear the song. They come out of their apartments, bags hanging from their fists. The yellow truck, not unlike an ice cream truck, slowly cruises the street, pumping its singular string of auto-tuned notes into the humid evening air. Replica toys emit the same punishing melody.
The song lodges itself into your subconscious. I hear it—am I asleep or awake?—and flop my legs out of bed. I have a lot of recycles. Where’re my glasses? The maiden is inching her way into my apartment. It’s muggy and the windows are open. I pull on cargo shorts. The collection stop is down the alley and around the corner. If I don’t hurry, I’m going to miss my chance. I’ll have to wait another day before the music comes back. (Garbage collection is five days a week in Taipei. Five days a week A Maiden’s Prayer haunts the streets.) Does it matter if I don’t have a shirt on? No, wear a shirt. Okay, glasses. Bags. Stumble downstairs.
I step out into the evening—maybe I’m dreaming this—and the truck is gone. People are out, but they don’t have bags. They’re holding brooms and cigarettes, magazines and handkerchiefs. Someone must’ve pressed a button, and now everything’s in slow motion. It takes forever to look down—my shirt’s on backward, three plastic bags in each hand. I need coffee. The maiden’s song—cheery, oblivious, menacing—is coming from above. I rotate my vision. Windows radiate an indifferent light. She’s up there. I can’t see her, but I can hear her. Maiden, I’m familiar with your prayer! This must cease! I don’t say that. The melody churns on.
Trudge upstairs. Everyone recycled except me. I must’ve been unconscious—the maiden drove past and I missed her. Fumbling for my keys. Wait. She’s there. In there. My apartment—her song. She never left! (Maybe I can still recycle?) Maiden! I exclaim, though really I don’t make a sound. Maiden! Listen to me! But praying maidens pray. They don’t listen.
All craters on Venus are named after women. Tekla is one of the craters. Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska. Her song resides in space. A Maiden’s Prayer penetrates the orange skies of Venus, stretching out into darkness, before it spirals down to the clogged streets of Taipei. It’s a cosmic traveler, this digitized earworm, drilling its way into your psyche. It’s music for brainwashing. Manchurian Candidate stuff.
I lie in bed clutching my recycles. But how can I sleep? The first Starbucks in Taipei appeared in 1998. Before that it was tea bars. Taiwan is the birthplace of boba tea, that curious fluid dotted with balls of tapioca. It doesn’t even taste like tea. A cup of coffee, a good cup of coffee, is something you can smell right away. Starbucks isn’t a good cup of coffee. But it isn’t boba tea, either. If I can’t sleep, I may as well have coffee.
I get up. The melody is wedged somewhere in my liver. I’m picturing Venus and all her craters, and leave my recycles in bed. Maybe they can sleep. Maybe I need to eat something. If no one else is gathering at the curb, I should stay put—go back to bed—but I don’t know what I’m doing, and walk downstairs. The night is jagged with shops and signs. Neon lights are trying to spell things—not letters but notes, musical pitches, and I’ve forgotten my glasses.
Laton Carter’s previous writing appears in Indiana Review, Necessary Fiction, New Flash Fiction Review, and The Wigleaf Top 50. Carter works in a middle school in Western Oregon.
A-minor 