As in a stream of consciousmess a vision of the entire scope of waste raced before my eyes while I robotically prepared a cup of morning coffee.
Clearing the table of the left over corn, rice and chicken I saw the life of each as a young plant or animal but missing only the part of themselves for which they gave their life. The ear of corn was missing only 20 kernals, the rice plant was missing only one sprig and the chicken a small part of its breast. All the rest went to waste. Then the image of our now brain damaged soldiers were seen compared to their 6 year old selves. The waste of great mountain sides could be seen for the ten minutes of heat we took from their coal seams below.
As if waste could be seen directly in all things all at once; in the car factories, the cafeterias, The great grocery stores pouring kerosene on countless dumpters full of past date food, the $billions in TV commercials, the wars and helpless victims everywhere in all times, I saw desertification of all the temperate zones on Earth and zoomed in on one small tribal family in the Amazon taking care to not waste a thing.
Then I dumped my half a cup of Columbian coffee down the sink, turned on the lights in the hall and went to warm up the car.