This is the 56th installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
He picked up trash in his spare time to dump in his neighbor’s yard. A “Big Gulp” cup, a water bottle, an old bag of chips—Lenny placed today’s haul in the bin next to his kitchen counter. He’d dump it all once it was full enough to merit creeping out at 2 a.m.
Eight more days passed before the trash bubbled up to the top of the bin. Lenny stood back to admire his work—and then he waited. By the time he dragged the bin onto Jenkins’s lawn, drowsiness blurred his vision. He definitely wasn’t a teenager anymore; staying up past midnight took all his willpower.
But he did it, again and again, because the litterbug needed to learn. Lenny thought of it this way: He taught 9th-grade biology by day and manners by night.
“It happened again,” Jenkins told him when they crossed paths the next morning. He stood on his lawn with a broom and dustpan. Even after months of this, he still hadn’t found a better system for cleaning up, and that only left Lenny feeling validated in his vigilantism. Clearly, the man took his sweet time learning things.
Lenny pursed his lips as he opened his car door. “Must be some neighborhood kids. Well, Jenkins, I wish I could stick around to help you, but I’ve got a meeting this morning.”
Miles Away 