Story and Artwork by Sandshoe.

The bottle-o speaks severely with himself; the sunshine on the surface of the restored although stagnant creek is so silver, and among the leaves and creaking branches of the gum trees gold, it obscures an afternoon caterwaul of birds on wing above them.

The bottle-o is farming the industrial bin behind the bakery. The Morning Loaf recycles nothing. The giant bin against the back wall fills each week, left open, and dominates a carpark that is its vicinity, the picnic tables over the commemorative bridge, and the tourist attraction of a gaol converted to a men’s toilet.

There is the street between us. Emptied of commerce and the cars of recreational travellers strolling its pavement bakery-side in the direction of, and from their cappuccinos and chocolates, foccacias toasted sandwiches, and ‘antiques for sale’. Biscuits. Even the sales agents have given it a rest.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you,” and “I can’t understand that, but here is what I’ll do. For you.” That was on Friday – another entrepreneurial shouter on the pavement at the bakery’s door.

That big old sun came up a particular morning glowing orange through the trees and John Shaw Nielsen’s imagery from The Orange Tree slid to mind as if into a projector as I walked out of the side door of the garage from looking around, attempting to see sense among abandoned once-treasures of owners, tenants, and lodgers-their remnants just a couple of empty suitcases. My attention caught by the orange burst, in the excitement of the delight I remember for the first time I am in Shaw Nielsen country. He lived in the South East and I feel his orange tree to my very bones. I regarded the rising sun with a feeling of watching living sculpture where all around is stilled.

The bottle-o has been practising his profession for 30 years. He loves bottles with a passion. He liked the water bottles I have run across the road eagerly with to offer him when we first met. He has been spoken to improperly in front of me. We were standing beside the car park bin sharing reminiscence about the Keep South Australia Beautiful campaign (KESAB). I had run across the road with two small bottles and a flavoured milk carton. An occasion to greet my newly met friend as much to contribute to the collection. His face suffused with the rush of the blood of embarrassment I wonder as all the more hurtful because he was conversing with me when he was chastised for ‘still doing that’, as if he exercising a nervous habit of degradation. The young thing drove off in her powerful vehicle. He pushed his wheelbarrow up the street and I still want to disappear up the street in the same direction and never come back other than to the Orange Tree.