The Crushed Aluminum Can on the Gravel Path

Dear Delyara, I found a crushed soda can outside the generator pod on my midnight round. It was rusted at the edges, half-buried in the wet gravel, with a faded red label that must have spent the entire winter getting stomped into the dirt. I stood over it with my torch for a long time, watching a single earwig crawl out from the sharp, jagged opening where the metal had torn apart. It’s strange how a piece of literal rubbish can make you stop in your tracks. It felt like a small, discarded monument to everyone who passes through these industrial parks—unseen, hard-working people who leave nothing behind but a dented piece of metal in the mud before they vanish back into the London traffic.