Angel of the Garbage Dump:

Black vultures soar in the sky above the garbage dump. They glide in meandering circles, carried by the updrafts of the wind as it whispers over the hills and volcanoes of this beautiful, rugged, haunting land. The buzzards wait, watching, smelling for opportunity below them. Something fresh, or something rotting. They follow a pecking order that determines which vultures will eat first. A meat carcass. A bag of rotting fruit. A stack of moldy tortillas. These scavengers are not picky. Far below, a truck arrives, dumping more trash into the teeming filth, its contents spilling into the ravine below. Creatures that look like ants scurry around the vehicle, carrying away their own treasures.

Suddenly the vultures sense opportunity. They turn and dive down, down—passing over the city cemetery and its tapestry of crosses and ornately decorated mausoleums. Like the trucks, this cemetery also feeds the garbage dump. The deceased whose families don’t pay “rent” for their vaults here sometimes get evicted, their corpses tossed over the cliff and into the landfill that seems to suck everything into its grotesque, hungry maw. Only the vultures glide effortlessly between the filth and the volcanic views above.

As the birds sweep down to eat, those ants swarming the yellow garbage truck evolve, suddenly becoming people. A second truck leaves the city streets and enters the basurero, the garbage dump, to drop its payload, and four men jump onto its back fender and hold on. Others jockey for position, placing their palms on the sides of the truck as it moves toward the ravine, then when it stops they box out their fellow scavengers like bouncers blocking the entrance to a nightclub. The truck’s hopper opens, and they climb up onto the trash as it tumbles down. One man grips the rope attached to the hopper, swings back and forth while peering inside to see what treasure the garbage yields today.

Each dump truck bears three digits written on its side, which broadcasts the zone of the city from which this garbage comes. Could it be whole, uneaten pizzas and discarded electronics from Zone 1, where the wealthy live? Or chicken scraps and plastic bags? Rotting fruits and vegetables? Even plastic bags and sheet metal command value in these parts of the city. They could be used for shelter, or sold on the underground market.