Repacking — Burnaby [updated]

“Hold,” Leo said.

And now, someone had sent a crate back.

The next night, three identical crates arrived. And Leo, the curator of Burnaby’s lost things, smiled. His real work had just begun. repacking burnaby

Deep in the bowels of the Burnaby Recycling and Waste Centre, past the mountains of flattened cardboard and the eerie groaning of the glass crusher, stood a man named Leo. Leo was the night-shift supervisor, a silent, observant fellow who had developed a strange relationship with discarded objects. He believed that everything thrown away had a story, and he was the last one to hear it. “Hold,” Leo said

Leo’s crew moved to gut it. That was their job: to repack Burnaby’s waste into neat, efficient cubes for the incinerator. But when the forklift’s tine touched the lid, the crate hummed . And Leo, the curator of Burnaby’s lost things, smiled