“You ever miss the stars, Suze?”
Suzie didn’t even look up from the trash bag she was tossing into her dump truck. The City of Newark paid them to collect trash, not talk. “Get back to work, Oz.”
“Sorry.” Oscar shook his head and picked up another bag. “It’s just...”
“Just what?”
Oscar sighed. “When I was a kid, my old man took me on a camping trip. Somewhere out in Pennsylvania. Real back country place.”
“And?”
“I remember looking up at the sky that first night.” Oscar had a sad smile on his face. “There were so many stars. You could see everything, Suzie. Big Dipper, Little Dipper, the Milky Way- it was beautiful. And now...”
Oscar looked up. So did Suzie. There were no stars; only advertisements zooming past in low earth orbit.
‘Snorkel in the ruins of Miami! Only $2K!’
‘New Studio Apartments in Brooklyn! Only $120K/month!.’
‘Depression got you down? Ask your doctor about Fentzac, the only antidepressant with the power of opioids!’
‘Win a free trip to space! Only in specially marked Cracker Jack boxes!’
They stood there, staring at the sky in silence, for a moment or two. Not for too long- they had a schedule to keep.
“Jeez, Oz, you trying to make me depressed?” Suzie shook her head and went back to work.
“I know, right?” Oscar swatted away a fly away from his face as he reached for one of the more fragrant bags. “Heard on the news that there’s this big movement to get rid off them.” He tossed the bag in with the rest of the garbage with a grunt.”A buncha astronomers, engineers, left-wingers, and country folk who just want to sleep at night again. Had this big protest in DC last week.”
“Eh, Bloedjuwl’s got Congress too well greased.” Suzie grabbed the last bag in the pile and tried to lift it- and failed. “God damn, what the hell they got in there, bricks?” Suzie tried again with a grunt. “Need help, Suze?” “I’m fine, Oz.” She pulled the bag up, finally lifting the damn thing- only for it to burst all over her. “Shit! Sonuva-”
“Should I get the shovel, Suze?”
Suzie didn’t answer.
“Suze?”
“...I wanted to be an astronaut, y’know?” Suzie looked at the filth she was covered with. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.”
“Lots of kids do.”
“I know Oz, but I really wanted to be an astronaut. I was obsessed with space. Had stars all over my bedroom wall and everything.”
“...you okay, Suze?”
“Get the shovel, Oz.”
Oz ran to the cab. Suzie took a deep breath, tried not to gag on the stench, and was about to turn around when she noticed something.
A Cracker Jack Box. Specially marked. Unopened. She knelt down and picked it up. There wasn’t really anything wrong with it, besides being a day or two past the best by. Probably would be fine to eat if it hadn’t been covered in god-knows-what. Suzie thought about the ad she’d seen fly overhead. ‘Win a free trip to space!’
Eh, what the hell, it was worth a shot. She needed a vacation anyway.
This is really solid world and character building. The way Suze gives her backstory as part of her having an emotional arc is really well done and avoids a lot of problems with short stories. Your dialogue flows really well, too.
I think they say each others names a little bit too often but it was also plausible that that was part of their schtick. If you could find an equally minimal and tight way to describe the terrestrial world a bit more, that could be a good way to highlight the ridiculousness of spending all those resources on space billboards while things aren't great on earth- which seems to be your propaganda goal.
Overall this is really good! Thank you for sharing and I hope you'll have more to share in the future :)