One day we came upon trash. First the water glistened withpatches of oil. Coming up soon after was the domestic andindustrial waste: mainly plastic refuse in a variety of forms andcolours, but also pieces of lumber, beer cans, wine bottles,tatters of cloth, bits of rope and, surrounding it all, yellowfoam. We advanced into it. I looked to see if there wasanything that might be of use to us. I picked out an emptycorked wine bottle. The lifeboat bumped into a refrigerator thathad lost its motor. It floated with its door to the sky. I reachedout, grabbed the handle and lifted the door open. A smell leaptout so pungent and disgusting that it seemed to colour the air.
Hand to my mouth, I looked in. There were stains, dark juices,a quantity of completely rotten vegetables, milk so curdled andinfected it was a greenish jelly, and the quartered remains of adead animal in such an advanced state of black putrefactionthat I couldn't identify it. Judging by its size I think that it waslamb. In the closed, humid confines of the refrigerator, thesmell had had the............