Rip Van Winkle woke up from a touch. He could not understand where he is.
The strong jerking of someone's hands by his clothes pulled up Rip Van Winkle to a some surface, where, at least, he could see daylight and the sky - albeit not very clearly.
Around him stood a several persons in greasy clothes, with dirty faces and hands. With sad looks.
Rip Van Winkle patted the pocket and discovered the absence of a book by Washington Irving.
- 'Gentlemen,' - Rip Van Winkle addressed the people, - 'where is the book?'
People, having heard this question, began to disperse, to go away. One of the adults muttered to a standing boy: "Find him a something."
The boy dived into a hole in a mass of plastic bags filled with various rubbish. A few minutes later he returned to Van Winkle with the book.
Van Winkle's mood improved. He decided to take a little walk, carefully stepping along the vast sea of polyethylene bags with garbage. The company was made up of the boy.
- 'A huge landfill,' - Rip Van Winkle remarked.
- 'A great one. Very big,' - the boy answered. - "The whole Earth is covered in several layers."
- 'How do you live ?!' - Rip Van Winkle was amazed.
- 'Not so comfortable,' - the boy answered. - "Dirty, crowded, stale."
The satellites were just approaching some particularly stale object. It was necessary to hold noses.
- 'Something can be found among the packages, in the packages themselves, under the layers of the packages. We have become the New Humanity!' - the intonation of pride was heard in the boy's voice. - 'We made up the Community of Seekers! See, you were found!'
- 'Hm,' - Rip Van Winkle muttered. - "But listen, young man! It 's an existence among garbage bags. Or a search in a garbage layers. Doesn 't that lead to depression?"
- 'It's not that bad,' - the boy answered. - "we have both excitement, passion and hope. Suppose we know in which place above the trash surface the tops of the tallest trees in the world rise - well ... of the remains of trees. To reach the surface of the Earth along the trunks, where the remnants of streams still flow, is not it a gamble? Part of the New Humanity has turned into a Community of Space-Owners and moved to the Mars. Our hopes are connected with them. Another part of Mankind has moved into the depths of the Ocean. The ocean is also filled with plastic bags, but in the particularly deep places the Community of Divers has formed. They sometimes rise to the surface - look at the sky and the sun. Some birds remained ...'
- 'That's what, young man!' - Rip Van Winkle declared. - 'Tell your colleagues that I - personally - decided to form the another Community - the Community of Speleologists.'
Rip Van Winkle went to the nearest mountain, found a cave in it, and in the cave - a space not occupied by garbage bags.
And fell asleep again.
Many more years have passed.
Rip Van Winkle felt a touch. The space of the cave was filled with light and some kind of mechanisms.
A robot approached the time traveler and held out his iron hand, helping to get up.
The robot placed the display in front of Van Winkle's face. The image of a man appeared on the display.
- 'Operator of the garbage-galactic project,' - the man presented himself.
- 'Rip Van Winkle,' - the time traveler said.
- 'You are written down in textbooks as the founder of the Speleologists Community!' - the operator commented on. - 'We have formed a transport energy beam. Along it we move a garbage onto one of the comets. Robots are busy with garbage collection.'
A moment later, Rip Van Winkle was with the help of one of the robots on the surface of the Earth. Unpleasant odors and smoke were no longer observed. But the space around looked somehow deserted.
Rip Van Winkle continued the conversation with the operator:
- 'Mister operator! It remind a desert!'
- 'The Recovery Program is being implemented,' - the operator diplomatically answered. - 'I will connect you, dear Rip Van Winkle, with the operator of the Program of Reconstruction... ... In a few minutes ... While you may to look around ...'
Rip Van Winkle patted the pocket. There was a book with Washington Irving's stories. In the distance, a robotic - garbage collectors moved.
Rip Van Winkle at random opened the book by Washington Irving. He read: 'Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain-herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud or the sail of a lagging bark here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands. "
- "It is possible to envy this Rip Van Winkle!" - Rip Van Winkle thought.
April 12, 2017
Translation from Russian into English: March 4, 2020 03:24.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Сказка о полиэтиленовом пакете'.