Zeg, the Red dalek

Zeg and the Dustbin of His Dreams

It was a bright, breezy morning in Ballykillduff when Zeg, the red Dalek, clanked down Main Street in search of something important. He wasn’t entirely sure what that something was—perhaps a scone, perhaps world domination, perhaps a nice spot to stand menacingly and shout at tractors.

But then he saw her.

There, outside Paddy McFlanagan’s corner shop, stood the most magnificent dustbin he had ever seen. She was tall. She was shiny. She had a lid that glistened in the sunlight like the crown of a mechanical queen. And when the breeze caught her just right, she emitted the most delicate clang he had ever heard.

“BY ALL CIRCUITS… SHE IS PERFECT!” Zeg blurted, his eye-stalk quivering.

For days, Zeg could think of nothing else. He would wheel past the shop just to admire her. He began to bring her gifts: a bent spoon, a half-deflated football, a postcard from “The Department of Suspicious Potatoes.” The dustbin, as dustbins do, remained stoically silent—but Zeg convinced himself she was shy.

He dreamed of a future together. They would settle down in a nice scrapyard, raise a litter of little pedal bins, and spend evenings watching sunsets over the bog.

One evening, Zeg decided to confess his love. Rolling up to her, he extended his plunger tenderly.

“DUSTBIN… WILL YOU… MERGE LIFE FUNCTIONS… WITH ME?”

The dustbin did not answer. Instead, Paddy McFlanagan came out of the shop, whistling, and tipped a large bag of potato peelings into her.

Zeg froze. The truth hit him like a tractor backing into a haystack. She wasn’t a mechanical queen. She wasn’t shy. She was… a bin. A receptacle for waste. A silent, stainless-steel sentinel whose destiny was to swallow rubbish, not to love a Dalek.

That night, Zeg trundled slowly out of Ballykillduff, his dome lowered. The wind rattled through the streets, and far behind him came the faint clang of a dustbin lid in the breeze.

He didn’t turn back. He couldn’t.

For Zeg knew that some loves are impossible, even for a red Dalek.

And in Ballykillduff, the dustbin waited, as dustbins always do.