Toronto - the people of the city, that is - hides its secrets in the tall bushes in front of our home, where two city streets intersect. These bushes are taller than I am; not by that much - but still. From spring to fall, these hedges are pretty dense with tiny leaves and such. I know people think of the space behind these leaves as a place for hiding in plain sight. I’ve found the wildest stuff in there; all of it a secret to someone else - but known to me. These are the secrets Toronto has revealed to me.

Beer bottles

I often find empty beer cans and bottles in the bushes. In fact, a beer bottle may be pushed half-way into the bush to create an impromptu cup holder. But to solve an immediate need to dispose of the empty vessel, one must push the bottle entirely into the bush. Then, it will be gone forever (we assume.) Until I find it, of course. In this case, there are market forces that ought to induce passers-by to extract and recycle these items; the beer recycling centre is just a few blocks away. But even the market, with its own omniscient and invisible powers, cannot recycle that which is unknown to its all-seeing hand.

Dog poop

I am not surprised anymore when someone throws their dog’s poop bag into the bushes. I know there exist grown people operating at the maturity level of children. In the way children must eventually master object permanence, the poop bag can be made to disappear from worry by simply hiding it in the bush. The secret, in this case, is the concealable nature of selfishness; of which the dog poop was merely a signifier.

Medical waste

I am a little concerned by the medical supplies I’ve found. Usually, these items are used, with patches of blood and other fluids on them. These are clear plastic bags of first-aid dressings for wounds, blue and black nitrile gloves, gauze patches, bandages, and so on. It is grim to consider these bushes sustain some portion of public health - a responsibility no shrubbery should have to meet. For my part, this medical waste is hazardous; my public service is that of disposal. I have a tool now that looks like enormous tongs/chopsticks, enabling me to move this refuse into a garbage can, which sits close by.

Pipe wrench

I found a massive pipe wrench in the bushes. It is heavy, rusted, and is still a useful tool. That wrench has secrets, no doubt. The wielder had secrets. One way or another, this wrench was made to be forgotten by someone. It is impossible to know how long but some days later, I manifested and elevated this secret wrench from the bushes. Now I am one wrench richer, having made memorable the forgettable.

Empty deliveries

I find empty delivery boxes, addressed to neighbours from a 5-block radius. In these cases, I imagine the box was intercepted in the last mile. Anything could be in the box; imagining the moment of unboxing with maximum novelty; something that may have only the narrowest, niche use to someone. Extracting the item from its cardboard envelope collapses the probability distribution upon observation. The box now has a known state, its contents having settled by means of some quantum calculus. Then into our bushes goes the box, itself now evidence of a deed that was certainly done.

Rotting food

I find food: rotting produce; the dumped contents of a take-out container; scattered compost that was dropped during municipal waste-pickup. Food is rarely something I must deal with when it has been hidden in our bushes. A tomato I found was eaten within a week; likely a raccoon helped to dispatch it. There are also pidgeons, squirrels, and coyotes in the mix. In the Anthropocene, we exist in symbiosis with the waste scavengers, feeding them our highly-processed emulsifications.

Plastic pre-roll tubes

I find empty plastic tubes that once contained pre-rolls. These containers surely must be the cutting-edge of container design; each one is different, often in fundamental ways. There are apparently countlessly-many mechanisms for solving the kid-proofing challenge: make a tube that an adult may open but a child cannot. Once it has been opened, the tube has fulfilled its purpose and it dies like salmon after spawning. From conception in the mind of its designer, through computer-assisted incubation, into the adolescence of manufacture, to ultimately mature as a fully-formed weed tube. Its swan song is the moment an adult puzzles over the novel latch or squeezable bits that were deemed un-openable by children - but eventually solvable by grownups. The circle of life.

Garbage

I find garbage. This was recently someone else’s garbage but now it is uselessly sitting in the bushes. It has become my garbage by default. Sometimes, it is placed directly into the bushes. Other times, it blows down the streets on “garbage pickup day” and our bushes filter-feed the trash, sifting it from the air and enveloping it. Wrappers and leaves of thin plastic scraps torn from bags of potato chips or shrink-wrapping for individual apples, now rattling and crinkling in the wind along with the actually-living bushes.

You doing okay, Toronto?

You’ve told me some pretty scarce tales. Are you fed? Are you cared for? We hide whatever we can’t stand to look at. Upon revealing these secrets, we find that it’s all garbage to society; from the bushes to the landfill, where it will be superficially forgotten again. A secret feels so important and personal; but I’ve found some of these secrets and the prevailing attitude is indifference. Is it better when society doesn’t care about our secrets? Is it better to witness it all? Must society be capable of forgetting so that we may heal from the harms of our own choices? We choose secrecy, from time to time, and the bushes are willing to hear it.