Source: BHFTV
For reasons I shan't go into I have to do a lot of house clearance over the next couple of months.
This is on top of needing to make a trip to the UK for family reasons, so my life is full right now.
The house clearance means I need to make a bunch of dump runs, and those go a little like this:
For that section of garbage that can't go into the usual Monday collection, you take it down to the dump yourself. You can pay someone else to do it. I don't want to pay money for anything other than furniture or stuff that won't go in the car. But it does mean a lot of dump runs for, say, old electronics, clothes the charity shop won't take, books that are too badly damaged or uninteresting to go to the charity shops, and so on.
The dump is way on the unattractive side of town. I could say it's the bad side, but that implies it's crime-ridden, and it's not. It's just too close to the incinerator, which means it's constantly under threat of ash, particularly if the wind is going the wrong way. In a place like Bermuda, where everything's supposed to be perfect, that's not great, and don't forget we get our drinking water from rainwater collection off the roof. There's all kinds of reasons why you might not want to live close to the dump.
The dump's a communal experience. Everyone goes there at some point. Doesn't matter where you are in society's food chain; someday there's going to be something you want rid of, and this is where it goes. There's a scattering of things on the kerb that someone left out in case someone wanted it. Art, usually. The rest goes into one of four bins, unless it's a car battery, which goes to one side. The whole shebang is presided over by a grotesquerie that someone put up in the way-back-when, a half-life size doll of a cricketer with a bat. You drive in, you dump, you move on. It opens every day at 7pm come rain come shine, unless it's Christmas. I'm probably going to make several dump runs this week. I have to go to town anyway. It makes sense.
RPG settings tend not to spend a lot of time considering trash, which is a shame, since garbage disposal is a big part of living in a community. Arkham is the one I think of. I've not yet read the more recent version; basing this on Arkham Unveiled, item 1005:
Most of Arkham's trash and garbage end up northwest of Meadow Hill, in a big excavated pit. At night the place is infested with raccoons, skunks, opossums, and an occasional black bear.
Which is fine so far as it goes but doesn't spend a lot of time on what makes it a dump or what happens when the dump gets too big for its britches. It spends at least half the description on wild animals which might be found there.
In period, Arkham, like Bermuda, probably spends a lot of effort not throwing things away. Things are expensive. Difficult to get. Often in short supply. You don't chuck things unless you have to. Furniture, clothing, these are things you repair.
Unless there's a compelling reason to get rid of it.
Dump Run
Your borrowed flivver is laden with things that absolutely will not keep and you've been tasked with taking it to the dump.
Some of Arkham's poorest are already there when you get there, picking through the discarded, seeing what can be salvaged. There's a policeman here too, which isn't usual. You recall an article in the Gazette about fights breaking out over scraps. That's probably why he's here.
Among other things you see, by the side of the road, a trio of paintings. This happens from time to time. The rich in the artist's colony take a disliking to something they've made and, rather than salvage the canvas (or, in some cases, the frame) they leave it here. Perhaps someone takes it. Perhaps not.
One of the paintings catches your eye. Is it:
Option One: The Seascape A battered fishing trawler limps back into port just ahead of a storm. It's a third-rate Expressionist piece, dimly reminiscent of film poster paintings. The Expressionist style makes it hard to make out details, but there's something hiding in the water. Perhaps several somethings. Humanoid? Difficult to tell, but they have eyes. Lots of eyes. SAN 1/1D3, and the viewer sees this in their dreams for a week. Longer, if they retrieve the painting and take it home with them. Anyone who does take it home becomes very interesting to Deep Ones, who pursue the picture owner trying to get the painting from them.
Option Two: The Landscape An exercise in social realism, this piece shows a city street in Arkham. Probably Northside, not too far from the Asylum and the Common. There are three figures clustered round a cart, a fruitseller, the only human figures in the piece. Otherwise the street is peculiarly vacant. You'd swear you know that street, but you can't quite place it. You must have walked through it or past it a hundred times. SAN 1/1D3, and if someone takes this piece home with them then they can find this street. Otherwise its existence preys on their mind, but they can't find it. If they do find this street, the fruitseller has something very peculiar for sale ...
Option Three: The Dreamscape An odd architectural section in the Bahaus style, someone's deconstruction of an older Arkham townhouse. If this is the early 1920s then Bahaus is virtually unknown in the US, making its peculiar use of colors and severe exactitude challenging to identify. The townhouse seems familiar, but the viewer can't quite place it. The effect is something like a 20th century genie in an 18th century bottle. SAN 1/1D3, and if the viewer takes this painting home they discover that their house, wherever or whatever it may be, becomes the townhouse in the painting, after dark. After midnight, footsteps can be heard. Someone is pacing the corridors of the house of dream.
That's it for this week! Enjoy.
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