There has been complaints for weeks about noises at night in the apartment's dumpster. He was instructed to keep a close eye on his night patrols to spot any suspicious activities in or around the dumpster. Having paid so much to live in the apartment complex, the residents did not want a bum hiding out in the place they have allocated for their trash. And he was paid to keep inconveniences such as these at bay. Carlo, the manager of the apartment told him to keep trouble and bums out of the place. He was an okay fella but the residences were a picky bunch and he understood that Carlo had a job to keep.

He had been keeping an especially close watch over the dumpster. There were no signs that anyone was inhabiting the place but the bums had their own ways of getting in and out of places with little visibility. Having been ignored so often, sometimes it almost seems as if they really have attained a physical invisibility. He spent the first hour of his shift, patrolling the complex grounds. He always started at the front gates then headed to the back garden by the pool then coming back a full circle to the front gate through the side entrances. Then he took his ten minutes break in the office, eating the leftovers from his dinner and making himself a cup of coffee form instant mixes in the office.

He went back to patrolling and as he passed by the dumpster he heard the indistinct shuffle. It could have been an animal but the shuffling had a rhythm to it. Whatever was making that noise, it wasn't being discrete. He put his hand on his baton and crept up to the door of the dumpster. He was not afraid, whatever or whoever was in the dumpster would not be a menace. Something that could be so attracted to the unwanted waste of people would not be a big threat but he still wanted to be safe just in case. Baton in hand, he strode to the door and pushed it open. It was a tiny figure inside. For a moment he thought he was looking at a mutated creature of sorts but after his eyes adjusted to the dark he could make out the shape of a bent-over woman. She had her back turned to him and seemed not to have noticed his entrance. She had her hands all the way inside the trash cans. She was digging up cans and bottles. She already had a bag filled with plastic bottles and recyclable glass containers of all sorts.

He shone her flashlight on her. It was at the intrusive beam of light that she turned around, half astonished, half irritated that he had interrupted her in the midst of her task.

"Hey Mam, you can't be here. This is private property."

She looked at him curiously, then turned her back to him and started rummaging again.

"Hey. Hey." He strode closer turning the beam on her face. She looked at him and squinted her eye, she showed no fear, only a look of incomprehension. Her looked at her grey hair , they glowed in the light.

"You understand English? You can't be here. You got to leave. Leave."

The woman muttered something to him, he guessed it must be Chinese.

"I don't know what you are saying. But you" he pointed at her "have to leave" and then pointed at the door.

She said another barrage of undicipherable words, motioning with her hands, gesturing at the trash cans, the bags and herself. He just shook his head and told her she had to go and this time to make the point clear, he picked up her bag of collected cans and moved them outside the door, then pointing at the door again, he told her "Go." At that, she reluctantly closed the trash cans and left.

He told Carlo in the morning. Carlo laughed.

"What? So all along those night sounds was just an old Chinese woman collecting cans? These people make too much of a fuss over nothing."

He tried to laugh along with Carlo.

"But whatever it is , just make sure she doesn't come back. Personally, I have nothing against the old lady, but the people here... you know."

He nodded.

When he told Rosa this, she frowned at him.

"So do it. What's the problem? Just tell her to go the next time you see her. It's not like he's asking you to beat her up." She rubbed her swollen belly, the baby was getting big fast.

"But Rosa, you don't understand, she's old and she's bent over. It's like she needs those cans or something."

Rosa just stuck her belly in front of him and said "Think of our baby. Plus, you need the job. Just do what he says. You can give her twenty bucks or something."

That night, he felt nervous, for reasons he couldn't pin down. He had two cups of coffee. He tried to delay passing by the dumpster by taking extra long on his patrol route. He walked the pool four times and went back and forth through the side gates so that he would not pass by the dumpster off the side of the main gate. When he walked past the dumpster, he heard the shuffling again. He went in and the same old woman was digging through the trash with her bare hands, picking out bottles and putting them into her big plastic bag. She didn't hear him, or perhaps she pretended not to. She kept combing through the piles of rubbish. He watched her for a little then he turned on his flashlight. He waved it to get her attention, she turned around with her empty hands outstretched, her palms facing up. They stared at each other for a moment, then without his asking, she grabbed her bag and left. He watched her shuffle slowly out and watched her disappear down the hill with the half empty bag.

The next morning, Carlo was displeased. "There was a complaint again last night. Did you tell that woman not to come back?"

He shook his head. "She don't understand English. I tried. But last night, she left by herself. I didn't need to tell her."

"You should have scared her away. You could have made your point clear."

"But Carlo, she's old. You should have seen her, she's tiny and she's hunched over. She's like a hobbit or something."

" I don't care what she looks like." Carlo scratched furiously at his hair, he did it whenever he got frustrated. "It's our jobs we're talking about here."

"But what do you want me to do? Kick her?"

"Just make it clear that she can't be there ok?"

He nodded to appease Carlo and to avoid trouble but he didn't know how he could make the point clear.

That night, he skipped patrolling the complex, he just stood by the dumpster waiting for the old lady to appear. He spotted her a long way off. He watched her shuffle up the hill on her tiny feet. Taking one step at a time carefully, as if any moment she would lose her balance and roll down the hill. She had good stamina despite being so slow. He wondered if he would be able to climb up that hill if he was as old and as hunched over as her.

She took a while to get to the top of the hill. She saw him standing in front of the dumpster and spoke a stream of words he could not understand. He shook his head at her. When she tried to open the door, he put his hand on it to stop her from getting in. She pleaded with him--he could tell by the way she was gesturing like she was making little bows to him. He told her he was sorry and that he had a family to feed. He took twenty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. But she shook her head and reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic bottle and pointed at it. He told her he was sorry and that there was nothing he could do, he didn't have a choice. He stuck the bill out to her. He was begging her to take it, but she just shook her head again and then turned to leave. He watched her disappear into the night, slowly and with great effort down the hill and out of sight.

In the morning, Carlo pat him on the shoulder and told him that he didn't need to worry about the old lady anymore, they were going to install a lock on the door so no old lady or bum could get in.

He waited for the old lady for several nights, but she never came by again. He often wondered what happened to her. Every time he walked past the dumpster he would think of her. Some nights he would watch the stars by the swimming pool, deep in the night when the world slumbered. He would watch the stars and think: how they looked so much like burning and sinking teardrops falling from the night sky.