Sludge McGrugal

Recycle-ville is a small town that seems perfect in every way. The families buy their food in bulk, they power their houses with solar or wind energy and they always use public transit when they can't walk. Nobody seems to know when this all started or why, but they certainly remember one man who did not seem to fit into Recycle-ville...that is, until he was taught a lesson!

It was many years ago when Sludge McGrugal moved to Recycle-ville. He moved there because it was a small town, and he thought that he would be able to get his work done and be left alone. The only problem was that he didn't believe in many of the same things as the other people in the community. He had never recycled anything, let alone owned a blue box! He had always heated his house with oil and he drove a huge truck that guzzled gas in a big way.

Sludge started to get on the nerves of the townspeople and they wondered what they would have to do to make him see what he was doing to the planet.

Well, they need not have worried too much. On one ' blue box day's eve ', Sludge drove home from work after picking up his dinner at the local drive- through. He ate as he drove and tossed the packages out onto the road. When he got home, he turned on all of the lights, and ran a hot shower (which he allowed to warm up for half an hour while he watched TV) and listened to the radio. After his shower, he went to bed, leaving on all of the lights and appliances. Just as he was falling asleep he heard his doorbell ring. Sludge angrily got up and trudged to the front door.

When Sludge opened the front door he was startled by what he saw. There, on his front porch, was an old friend from high school, Lydia Garbagecan. He had not heard from Lydia in ages, and had wondered what had happened to her. Now she stood on his front porch and asked to be invited in.

Sludge directed her into his sitting room and asked her to have a seat. She said that she could not stay long and then got very serious. Once inside, she said "Sludge, you are a bad man. I know that we used to pick on the recycling geeks in high school and vandalize the Blue Boxes in our town, but we were wrong".

Sludge just stood there with his mouth gaping like a fish out of water.
He could not believe that his partner in mocking the Environmental movement was admitting remorse for all that they had accomplished over the years. Visions of overturned blue boxes flashed through his mind.

Lydia continued, "Sludge, you must start to recycle, and what is more, you must stop driving everywhere. Use public transportion. The Earth is starting to bite back and we have to do our part, now. It may be a matter of survival!"

Sludge had had enough. He ushered Lydia to the door and barely heard her mumble something about a couple of ghosts before he shoved her rudely out his front door. Defiantly, he turned on another light, cranked up his heat and went back to bed.

Sludge lay in bad tossing and turning thinking about a meeting that he had set for the next day. He completely forgot about Lydia.

Suddenly, three clocks in the living room, two clocks in the kitchen and one in the basement chimed to announce that it was 1:00 a.m. Then he heard a rustling in the hall, a knock at his door and the voice of his mother.

"Sludgey", she called, "Are you awake yet?"

"I'm coming" he heard himself say, subconciously.

Only it wasn't his voice, not his current voice. He sounded about ten years old.

Sludge climbed out of bed and dropped to the floor. He was amazed to find that he was only a little taller than the bed and, sure enough, when he looked into his mirror he saw a reflection of himself as a young boy.

"Sludgey, you are going to be late for your Planet Kids meeting" his mother called from the other room. Suddenly he remembered that he had in fact belonged to an environmental club all those years ago.

Soon he found himself in a room with all of his old friends listening to ideas about how to recycle paper and glass and cans in the school.

Frightfully, he thought about what was to happen next. Sure enough, on his walk home that night he found himself throwing his lunch bag on the ground and all of his friends suddenly turning on him and calling him names. That night he walked the rest of the way home with Lydia Garbagecan- the girl that became his partner in trashing the neighbourhood.

Sludge heard the town centre clock strike 4:00 a.m. and suddenly he awoke in his bed. He looked down and saw his normal size 11 feet. He spoke to himself and his voice was deep again. He was home!

As he lay in bed thinking about what he had just seen, a breeze began to blow outside. Then, out of nowhere a huge wind blew through his window and a small fly landed on his bed post.

Sludge lifted his hand to splat the fly, but he paused with his hand raised in the air, as if he had a question to ask. Slowly, the fly was growing. Growing and morphing into some kind of fly-human thing.

Sludge quickly slapped himself instead, trying to wake up from this crazy dream. Suddenly, the fly spoke to him in that squeeky voice that big fly-humans tend to have.

The fly whispered "Sludge, you are a good man. I would like to show you what you have done for us!"

"Sludge", responded the fly, "Don't argue with me. I am part fly and I will hypnotize you with my buggy eyes if you do not do as I say!"

Reluctantly, Sludge lifted himself out of bed and hoisted himself onto the fly-human's shoulders. The fly started to morph back to normal fly size, and Sludge also started to shrink. Before he knew what was happening, they were flying over the town along the route that Sludge took to work each day.

The fly cried out over the buzz of his wings, "This is it, we are about to enter Fly heaven".

Sludge did not like the sound of that. He peeked up and over the fly's head and saw a huge white box ahead. As they got closer, he could see something else behind it with a long yellow stick coming out of the top. Suddenly he realized, they were heading for the remains of his fast food dinner- and they weren't the only creatures coming to land.

The fly took him down the straw and into the most disgusting party Sludge had ever seen. There, inside his dinner cup, were about 200 flies all chatting about how good garbage was and how tastey flat pop was.

Sludge was horrified and demanded to be taken home, but it was useless. His fly "friend" had met up with a group of fly-buddies and they were drinking and laughing like they would never stop. He was beginning to give up hope and was about to start walking when something lifted up the cup. His heart stopped.

"What now?" he thought, but the Flies kept on partying as if nothing unusual was happening.

The cup started to rock and then it was as if they had been launched through the air. Suddenly there was an almighty crash. All the flies and Sludge were slammed against the top of the cup and they came to rest.

Sludge had had enough and he immediately started to make his way back out of the cup along the straw.

There was a horrible smell coming from the end and he
was beginning to feel sick and short of breath.

When he emerged from the end of the straw, all he could see was garbage and the air was thick with a browny gray film - pollution. Sludge dropped to his knees, realizing that he had been contributing to this mess for his whole life.
He was a nature destroyer! If he continued this behaviour, the Earth would become a giant pile of trash, and no one would want to live here any more... even if they could! He gasped and shut his eyes tight.

Sludge heard a beep and realized that it was his watch alarm. He thought that he had reached the end of his days and he was scared. He closed his eyes and lay down. He thought about how horrible he was and wished he could change. He was hysterical, but he was also tired.

As he began to settle down, he realized that the smells had dissipated and that we was able to breath again. He reached down and didn't feel garbage beneath him. Instead he felt the soft cotton of his bed sheets. He opened his eyes and was relieved to find himself in his own bed.

Jumping up out of bed and running into his living room. He looked out the window and saw that blue boxes lined the street at every house but his own.

"No more" he yelled. "From now on I will recycle!" Then he ran to the kitchen where he sorted his garbage and took a box of recycling to the curb.

Sludge sold his enormous truck and bought a bus pass and a bicycle. He hooked up solar panels on his roof and started biking instead of watching TV. He was a changed man. This wasn't just a good thing for Sludge; the recyclers down in Recycle-ville breathed a sigh of relief.

And to this day, if you go there, you can still see Sludge, alive and well, helping to keep the streets free of litter, the streams clear and clean, and the flies..