The Can That Could Not Be Moved

The Can was still there, sitting right smack dab in the middle of the road. It was a blister, a sore, a thorn in his side. It was a mockery of his job, his calling, his duty.

It was going to be crushed and smashed and recycled, and it was going to go today.

Frankie hoisted his broom and narrowed his eyes at the can. He looked up and down the road before he marched up to the Can, put his broom against the stupid thing and shoved it into his dustpan.

It didn't budge, not even a bit.

He gritted his teeth and tried again.

No give. Stupid Can was hard as the road underneath it.

A horn blared behind him. Frankie returned to the side of the road, where he'd left his bag and plastics, and stared at the Can.

It was nothing special: just a can. Frankie had never seen the logo before, but it was yellow and red, with a touch of green and purple. Four days it had stood in the same spot, and everyday Frankie had tried to sweep it away. On none of them had he succeeded. It was getting to be ridiculous, frustrating, not to mention embarrassing.

Frankie frowned.

To be beaten by a can.

He'd seen plenty of things as a road sweeper, some nicer than others, some you'd shiver in nightmares from for weeks. He'd seen people get out of their cars to yell at other drivers for throwing their rubbish out the window. He'd seen people spit out their window, hawking disgusting, slimy globs he always wished they'd find on their food one day. He'd seen days post-festival/march/protest, where not even an army of Frankies could sweep the streets to perfection in anything less than two days.

Never, in all his two-and-a-half years of road sweeping, had he seen an immovable can, and Frankie swore he never would, because he was a street sweeper and cans were made to be swept away.

He took a deep breath, even closing his eyes. He had tried a selection of tools. The broom hadn't worked, and neither had a dustpan, or the hammer. A chisel hadn't made a dent, either. Frankie had debated a flamethrower, but had decided against it. For one thing, he didn't know where to get one. For another, he wasn't sure he wouldn't get into trouble. He had lit a small fire and tried to melt the underneath of the can, to try to pry it off the road, but all he'd done was char it.

He had often wondered, over the past few days, what the Can was. If it was a prank, Frankie thought as he contemplated the stupid tin with dissatisfaction, it was in very poor taste. He was failing to be amused, very much so. It could be part of a protest, but he couldn't think of any that involved gluing cans to roads. He wondered if it was a film shoot, or a gag show, or even if magic was finally taking over the world. None of that mattered, however; Frankie was a professional. All rubbish must be swept up and disposed of in the proper manner.

Today, he had his last resort: a crowbar.

He rubbed his hands together and wrapped them around the handle. Hoisting the crowbar, he strode out into the centre of the road. He braced the crowbar against the edge of the can and pushed.

Nothing happened.

Frankie stomped on the handle, and still nothing moved. He shoved and pushed and even stood on it a bit, then a lot, and the Can wouldn't move. He muttered and grumbled as he tried prying the crowbar under the Can on this side, then that side. Not even twisting it and worked. He was making more progress gouging holes in the road than budging that Can.

He grabbed the crowbar, frustrated, and lifted it high over his head. He keyed up and then brought the crowbar down on the Can, hitting it hard and fast.

Lo and behold!

Nothing.

Frankie hit it again, and again, and again and again and again. Then he lifted his leg and stamped down hard, stamp, stomp, jump, hit, again. He kicked it, shoved it, smacked it with the crowbar.

Nothing, nada, nil. Not even a shadow of a dent. The Can was permanent, indestructible, immovable. King of all Cans, stuck in the road, open only to those worthy of moving it.

Another car came up, blaring at him, and Frankie trudged back to the shoulder of the road and set the crowbar down. He picked up his trash bag, his spear. A light breeze blew gently, carrying a piece of paper down the sidewalk. Frankie stabbed the paper, lifted it and shook it into his trash bag. He sighed, wondering what he should do about the Can.

"Excuse me?"

Frankie turned. There was a kid behind him, an artsy type. Backpack, paint on his clothes, long pants, T-shirt. He smiled at Frankie, who blinked at him. It was a nice smile, and Frankie felt, vaguely, like he'd suddenly acquired a little brother.

"Can I throw this in your bag?" asked the kid, moving his hands, which were full of rubbish, towards Frankie's bag. "I'd throw it in a dustbin, but I figured... you'd just cleared them out, so..."

"Oh," Frankie said, blankly. "Yeah, sure, go ahead." He held out his bag, and the kid threw what looked like his lunch in, in a mix of yellow and purple and brown and red.

"Thanks, dude," said the kid, before he left. Frankie sighed, wistfully wishing he could go back to his school days, pre-Can.

He shook the garbage so it settled in his bag, checking to make sure the bag wasn't full.

The Can lay at the top of the bag.

He gaped at it, sitting there in all its yellow-purple-green-and-red glory, disbelief painted firmly on his face. He blinked at it, gasped, trying to process this twist. He looked back at the road: no Can. Not a trace of it left - just the holes he'd made with the crowbar. He looked back into his bag. There it was. He jiggled the bag, and the Can jiggled from side to side with it. He shook it and it clunked against the rest of the garbage. It was an ordinary can.

The kid.

Frankie looked up, frantically looking for the kid. He was gone, vanished into the building, no sight of him left. Frankie giggled, feeling a little bit crazy. Four days of working hard on something so impossible, and a kid had come along, picked up the can and thrown it away.

In his trash bag, no less.

What was this anticlimactic ending?

Frankie huffed, peeved and feeling disgusted, pathetic and outwitted. He was suspicious that something fishy was going on: could that innocent child have planned this as a prank? He looked up and around, eyeing the windows of the building, looking for people who could be watching him and laughing at his clueless face.

Frankie shifted his bag to his right hand, and stabbed another piece of paper.

***

"Yo, Fraaaankie!" someone shouted. Frankie turned. It was his colleague, a sweeper from the next town over. They were at the checkpoint, checking in for the day. Frankie stood at his locker, hunting for his phone.

"Hey, Lorrie," he said, distractedly. "What's up?"

"What you doing?"

"I left my phone at home," he said, sighing. He bonked his head gently against his locker door, dejected. "Bad day, darn it."

"Not as bad as Uni," said Lorrie, opening his own locker. He gave Frankie a wink and a grin. "He's got a can he can't move."

Frankie's eyes snapped to the side, eyeing Lorrie. "Say what?"

"A can," Lorrie chortled. "He was complaining last night that there was this can stuck to the middle of Jupie Street, and no matter what he did, he just couldn't get rid of it. Funny guy, huh?"

"A Can," Frankie repeated softly, looking into his locker. It was a simple locker, only one picture hanging on the inside of the door, and a yellow-green-red-and-purple tin can sitting on the top shelf, polished to a high sheen. Frankie sniffed thoughtfully.

"Think you're having a bad day, at least you don't have cans that won't jump into your bag when you say 'Jump', eh, Frankie?" Lorrie said, nudging Frankie with his elbow, and then went away laughing.

"So true," Frankie said, a grin stretching over his face. He winked at the can in his locker, then shut the door and went to work.