Growth and decline.

When WasteTech first came to Ledgewood, we welcomed it. No, it wasn't anything glamorous--not a tech conglomerate or a movie studio--but when you need jobs as bad as we did, you temper your expectations. And truth was, they helped the community. They bought and renovated the movie theater, commissioned murals on the side of the pharmacy, even paid to have potholes filled in on Main Street. They seemed trustworthy, really they did.

And for that reason, we didn't think to dig very deep when they introduced their Waste Byproduct Reintegration Program. Our town was experiencing a bit of a boon. You don't second guess a thing like that, and you definitely don't ask questions, not even, "What is Waste Byproduct Reintegration?"

When the water started tasting funny, we just thought it must be something new in it, put there for our health or what not. We kept drinking it, and with the drought as bad as it was, we kept using it to water our lawns. We didn't notice that the trees were getting shorter, or that our heads were getting bigger, for a long time. Only when the WasteTech execs came through the factory one day to check on things did we realize what was going on. These were men who drank exclusively from water coolers and lived on large estates outside of the municipal water supply. Their heads appeared like baseballs next to ours.

There was talk of a revolution, of burning the factory to the ground and running the higher-ups out of town. But by then not one of us could go much more than ten minutes without having to rest our heads on the floor, a feat achievable while standing, due to such severe swelling. We were too late. And so WasteTech has remained.

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