anti:freeze

newspaper box, downtown Portland, taken with the cell phone

What a slow process for property destruction - standing hunched over the newspaper box, pressing the lit tip of a cigar (or lighter flame, maybe?) into the plastic. This box sits on a busy downtown streetcorner, and on a normal day, I push past the crowds and hurry across the street before the light changes. But when I saw the blackened plastic, I kneeled down to touch the melted edges of the hole. I found myself reading the headlines. (And, of course, it's a strange headline to provoke vandalism - the earthquake in Iran. Or maybe the burn was there before?)