Stuffed toys

Every morning lately on my mile walk I’ve encountered a big cardboard box outside a house along the street. It’s out there waiting for the city’s recycling pickup, which comes tomorrow morning. The box is old and worn and hand-lettering on one flap reads "stuffed toys." But it’s filled with empty liquor and beer bottles, and I mean filled. Sometimes I imagine the drinker is the divorced father of a child who moved out with his mother. Sometimes I think the drinker is the widower of a woman and child who were killed in a car wreck or a plane crash. Sometimes I just wonder why the drinker buys bottles of beer instead of cans. I expect the truth is mundane. But you never know.