Winston Boyd, Custodial Manager of the Schachbrett landfill, sat in his office. A lit cigarette dangled from his lip as he tapped at the keyboard of his computer. Alternating between the adult site he had open in one window and the site belonging to a popular resort in Fiji that his wife had been going on and on about lately.

There was a knock at the door. Winston didn’t bother looking away from the screen where a woman in a too-tight bikini did suggestible things with a wacky wavy inflatable tube man. He just closed his eyes and hoped that whoever it was would take the hint and go away.

As the knocking persisted, He simply sighed and said,

“Alright, come in already.”

The door opened and in walked Branson Wilkins, one of the two head foremen of the landfill. A good egg who was rewarded with the position of head foreman after taking a rap that the family Schachbrett family couldn’t afford to be associated with.

“Boss?” said Branson.

“What is it? Why the fuck are you bothering me, Wilkin? Can’t you see that I’m working here?” said Winston.

“S-, sorry, boss. I just....there’s something me and the boys think you should see.”

“What? Whatever it is I’m pretty sure Luca can handle it.” said Winston. Intending to push the problem onto the senior head foreman Luca Schwartz.

This wasn’t Winston simply being lazy. The older man had seen plenty of odd things. Some of them brought in by happenstance. Some of them sent by the bosses above them for incineration and disposal. Luca Schwartz was someone who could handle himself and knew how to keep his mouth closed. That’s why he was next in line to be Custodial Manager of the facility once Winston retired.

“I...Luca’s not in today, but I think you’d probably need to see this even if he were here.” said Branson. His sun weathered face looking pale.

“Tch, alright...Alright, I’ll be down in a minute.” said Winston.

Branson left. Winston grumbled beneath his breath as he closed the browser on his computer and grabbed his coat. It was getting colder and colder but the state of Arcadia had yet to see its first snowfall of the year.

Winston took the stairs and met Branson on the ground floor of the landfill’s waste sorting plant.

“Alright, I’m here. What’d you need to show me so bad?” said Winston.

“Boss ...Turn around.” said Branson.

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“What? Why? Is this some kind of surprise, because I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you that there’s nobody here that likes being surprised. Why would you even think that’s a good idea.”

“Boss...Just...Just look.” said Branson.

After seeing the taller man’s strained expression Winston felt himself grow tense. He turned and looked in the direction where the other man had told him to look and saw...nothing.

At first Winston didn’t understand what he was supposed to be staring at. Then it hit him that there were no mountainous heaps of garbage. No machines left sitting in the midst of flattening a mound of non-recyclable, non-burnable, waste. Nothing.

Beads of cold sweat ran down the shorter man’s balding brow. Winston turned to Branson and shakily said,

“This uh...What the fuck is this?”

“I...I’d tell you if knew, boss. I swear I would.”

Winston strode forwards to get a better look and found to his increasing dismay that it wasn’t just the surface of the landfill that had gone missing. Roughly a mile of the soil and concrete that had lain below was missing as well. Leaving only a vast gulf.

“Was...was there any security footage for when all this shit happened?”

“No, boss. The security wards weren’t triggered either.” said Branson.

Winston ground his teeth and regretted letting one of his bosses sons, Alfie, talk him into handling security. He’d always suspected that buying that cheap no-brand tech would bite them all in the ass one day.

Winston stared down at the damage and for one panic filled moment a part of him considered jumping into the massive hole where the landfill had once been. Then he snapped out of it, took a deep breath and chuckled.

“Well, fuck...It is what it is then. Wilkins go the fuck home.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. You’re the head foreman of a landfill. There is no landfill at the moment so I don’t need you here. Tell your wife Sheila I said hi and sorry for missing that brunch thing the other day. The dog was sick.”

“Uh...sure. Don’t mention it. But boss, what are we gonna do about the landfill and the plant?” said Branson. Looking much better now that the matter was no longer in his hands.

“Do? Nothing. Do you see this shit? Is either of us a mage or super?! No. So this shit is officially beyond our pay grade. This shit is what the bosses set up all those action plans for. You go home. I’ll go call the bosses and try to explain to them how the fuck we managed to lose a whole damn landfill.” said Winston. Laughing, feeling a jolt of hysteria rising inside him.

“Is...is that really okay?”

“Okay? Nothing about this is okay, Wilkins. But like I said, it is what it is. Nothing that we had buried in this particular landfill is tied to anything too serious and the cops would have brought a warrant if they wanted to search this place so I don’t think we need to worry about that. So most likely we’ve got nothing to worry about?”

“Really?” said Branson.

“Really. Now go home. Have Patricia in human resources send a message out to let the rest of our boys know they’ve got some unplanned time off as well.” said Winston. Smiling. Speaking almost entirely out of his ass by this point. Quietly praying that the bosses didn’t send one of their freaks with the body melting powers to come and whack them all.

Branson Wilkins did as he was told. Winston trudged back to his office like he was a prisoner on death row. Walking that final verdant mile to the electric chair.

Five hours later a relieved looking Winston Boyd would walk out of his office looking like a man who’d just received a pardon.

The bosses were surprisingly less incensed than he’d thought they’d be. Apparently they agreed with his assessment that whoever took the trash probably wouldn’t use it against them.

They said he’d have to find some dirt to fill in some of the missing land but that was no problem. Winston had friends in construction who could fix that easily enough.

As for the missing landfill, the Schachbrett bosses had decided to just let sleeping dogs lie. In this increasingly inexplicable world strange things happened all the time. If were going to work here and live here you needed to know when to shrug and just let things go.

Winston also decided that he’d stop procrastinating and finally book his wife that vacation he’d been promising her. He badly needed a break after this particular incident and he also thought it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to be out of the country if things didn’t turn out as rosy as he and his bosses hoped they’d be.