It wasn’t about what was there, it was about what wasn’t. Where everything should have been and would have been was nothing, nada, no-sir not a drop. But like with a car that passes in a flash and your friend turns to you and says, “oh did you see that license plate?” But you were to busy watching the hubcaps and never thought to read the license plate at all. Like that, I couldn’t place what it was that now was not. I keep my front yard cluttered, for security reasons, of course. Statues play an essential role in security-by-deterance. This and the signs that tell of many invisible dangers just out of reach, just over the fence.

Ah! A tin, that was it, I was sure. There, right where the lowest step of my porch tucked into the grass. It would have housed pinto beans. That’s the only tinned product I dare touch. But to be gone? I gauged the sky and scanned up and down the stretch of street until it tucked around the corner on both sides, but no storm or winds or suspicious individuals had come through in the last few hours by my measurements. We had a case of tin self-realization, here: Cansciousness, ferrous-awareness, a light on in the tin. I’m not one to go chasing a can that’s just started to get ideas in its head, that’s far too easy. I like to give it a head start. And so I went back inside where my kettle was screaming at me.

After a hot cup, I checked my watch. I had one hour until sunset and after that, certainly, the feral tin would be out of town. With the rest of the tea on its way down my throat, I strapped on my best boots, waved farewell to the paintings on the wall, hesitated at my gun cupboard because both the double-barrel quix and the punker plunker looked like they held well – but I chose the heaviest magnet I could find instead – and I was down the next block before the sound of my door slamming could get there first. Each block I swung between doubt and fortitude. Why am I so determined to catch this tin can in the act? No, sprint now and catch that anti-interloper fast – this twangy cylinder just existing is the shallowest of shames. And sometimes my eye would catch a beautiful yard, the owners obviously well-versed in botanics, and, mid-waft, nose-deep in a blue rhododendron, I’d come to and shout, “Out! Out! Come out you crafty, ridged factory-child!” the wind hardly able to keep up with my pace.

I made it to the park and the metal slide caught the sun and then caught my eyes and then those eyes caught the watch which hadn’t caught the sun and a little to the left, there – ah! – my sleeve, caught on a branch and I pulled it free and finally I read the time and it caught me by surprise. Sun down in five! No, unless I moved fast the tin would be away forever and what is more embarrassing than having a tin flee your grips is having chased it down and still it got free. You see, this wouldn’t do and that was why I made the choice I did. With both my hands I pulled my phone from my pocket, held it before me and typed fast, one eye on my watch the whole time. Grib’s voice came through clean but distorted, like his face was wrapped in a fish net: “This is desperate, this is a calamity, I’m can’t steady my knees they’re rattling so fast.” Everything Grib’s said sung true and I made noises to agree and other ones that moved him along because time was less. “Gibs,” I finally got a word in, “Gibs, I have a plan but the more we speak, the less daylight there is. You must listen close and listen clear and if anything confuses you, don’t make a squeak until I’m done, but tap the microphone with your finger and I’ll count those taps and afterwards gauge your level of understanding.” Not a tap came while I ran out my idea down the line, and when I was done there was enough silence that I thought the line had cut for a moment. Then Gibs started, “I understand what I must do. I will go and find the luxux and empty them into the – “ But the rest of what Gibs said is lost because the phone fell from both my hands and met my shoe. I didn’t even watch it fall. Something just over by the swings, small and glimmered with how it had caught the last sun rays. My hand went to my supply of magnets. Dry leaves have betrayed my stealth before, I avoided them carefully as I approached my target, knees bent, eyes forward, hands tense. The final ray of sun flung off the glimmer and then it was dark, but I didn’t move my neck so that my attention remained on the dark spot. I would have to go in blind it seemed.

With five more steps I would be almost right over the spot. One magnet in each hand and the button between my teeth ready to push, I held them ahead of me like I was repelling anti-polar demons. My speech of success I’d recited in my head six times already while on the hunt. It hung noiselessly on my lips right now. Escaped trash can only be treated with stern words, otherwise a first run becomes one of many sprints. And then, I made the call to spring and I put everything into it, magnets flying every way. It felt like hours before I ceased up and backed off to see the effect my work and words had had. Twice I rubbed my eyeballs clean, I couldn’t believe they were showing me what I saw. No tin, no can, no metal at all, but a man, cowering in a ball, curled so tight I would have thought him part of the environment, maybe an exotic plant. “Gib!” I shouted, more in surprise than in anger, because I didn’t realize just yet that he had thwarted my can-capture on purpose. “Gib! Are you all right?” I put my magnets down and touched his shoulder to see if he was responsive. One side of his face was caked in mud that had been there a while because it was dry. “You look caked and dry, Gib,” I said. “Why are you out here? How are you out here?” And I made to wrap him in my jacket because he looked cold, there so close to the soil. But as I reached around his shoulder he shifted ever so slightly and something tinged. I hesitated, I never remembered Gib making that sound before. “Gib?” Gib seemed to not hear me. “Gib.” I tried again, this time I knew he heard me, but pretended not to. With a quick hand I grabbed his upper arm where it folded over his knees to keep him tight, I pulled it hard and away and opened Gib up wide. He sprawled on the floor like he was being crucified by a bog and I pinned him there hard with my arms. “Gib, you traitor.” Gib didn’t speak with words, but used his eyes, and looked far away, up to the clouds, the tree canopies, or anywhere that wasn’t here. “Gib, you traitor,” I raised a magnet high above my head and pointed it at Gib. Gib cowered and when I brought it down he finally let out a noise and that was when I took my chance and put the magnet into his mouth, pushed the button, and seized the tin can. It came out screaming, a tinny timbre that cut my ears hard. I plunged it into a bin bag full of cotton swabs to douse the sound. I released Gib. He was too busy rubbing his elbows to hear my curses as I left the park. The last red of the horizon was drawing out to black as I made my way back down the road to home.