Colin tripped over an empty bottle. A look of disbelief highlighted his deep frown, ‘You’re slipping up Burrell,’ he said to himself and ran a hand over his receding hairline, cringing as his palm made contact with oily skin. He scampered through the kitchen, feeling his way through the darkness.
“Soapsoapsoap,” he whispered as he grabbed a hold of the tap with one hand and the dishwashing liquid with the other.
An aroma of lemon and honey filled his nostrils; he tilted his head back.
‘I wonder why they would put honey in the stuff,’ he thought, ‘Strange thing, honey in dishwashing liquid. Smells good. The ads must be really good because I bought it. Sucker.’

He stepped to his right and opened the second drawer from the bottom. The cotton hand towel seemed to wrap itself around his hands. Colin’s upper body slanted away from the bin as he opened it with his foot. Then, careful not touch any part of the trash can (and resembling a teenage girl holding up a slit-open frog during a science experiment), he dumped the cloth. He wiped his hands on his trousers and pressed the LIGHT button on his Casio Databank watch. He checked the date and time: 22:09, 02-01-1995.
The light went out, so he pressed the button again, 'Where is that bottle?' The sterilized plastic under his feet in the living room area lit up neon blue, ‘Wow,’ Colin said, ‘My own little ocean.’
Then, as if a laser in some early 1980's B-movie, he then pointed the watch in the direction of the brown and orange furniture set piled up in the corner of the room. ‘She doesn’t have the range,’ he said, referring to his watch’s flickering light. He waited for it to go out and took out a crumpled bit of tissue from his corduroys. He found the bottle, picked it up with the tissue paper and placed it in the bin on top of the hand cloth so as to deafen the sound the glass bottle would make on the empty disinfectant spray cans, “There you go. End of the road for you. Over and out. Now you can’t cause me anymore trouble. Stay there with the rest of your brothers and sisters for a while longer because the garbage truck arrives in --” He shook his wrist and gawked at his watch “-- just a sec --” A wide smile revealed perfect front teeth as he laughed at his own joke. The face of the watch lit up again and he punched in the numbers on the calculator keypad, “-- exactly eight-and-a-half hours - which reminds me; I still have a lot to do. Nighty-night now.”
The lid slammed shut and Colin walked towards the window overlooking Detroit River, his one right foot dragging over the plastic.

‘Ontario definitely has more lights than Detroit,’ he said, blinking at the lights shimmering in the reflection of his face, his eyes two empty holes because there was no light in them. He opened the window a little because the alcohol fumes were making him dizzy, ‘You need a whiff of fresh air, Burrell, just enough not to let all those viruses and God-knows-what-else in here.’