Crete (short for “excrete”) is, far and beyond, the most polluted city in the world.

If you couldn’t tell by the name. The issue is this: an invasive fungal ecosystem occupying the citywide sewer system contaminates the water in such a way that makes it (the water) immediately congeal upon oxidizing, semi-hardening into a sort of sludgy substance that cannot be conventionally destroyed and doesn’t biodegrade. Upon exposure to oxygen, the “water” also enters into a ~three hour long metamorphosis wherein it transforms from a benign and generally harmless substance into an EXTREMELY toxic and destructive one, burning through solid substance at an absolutely calamitous rate. Because of this, waste disposal/management is Crete’s foremost civic occupation—the entire city council is solely occupied with keeping shitty toxic sludge water from flooding the streets, leveling the entire city, and basically melting anyone and/or anything it comes into contact with. The three hour grace period means that Crete is basically in a constant state of panic, turning the quotidian humanistic ritual of “taking out the garbage” into a frenetic 24/7 hellfuck doomsday gambit. The only way to “deactivate” the sludge water is by boiling it at temperatures exceeding two thousand degrees, a process which can only be safely undertaken in one of the six Garbarges (garbage barge’s) which constantly patrol Crete’s airspace.

At any given moment, at least 70% of Crete’s population is actively disposing of waste. From this vantage, you can make out both a large and domestic instance of this disposal: a Garbarge glides across the skyline, spewing a cloud of polluted sludge smoke in its wake. Meanwhile, a single citizen disposing of sludge in his backyard (he thought it would be funny to play basketball with his garbage bags) has just unwittingly caused a major citywide catastrophe, spilling two and a half hour old sludge all over the place and is now completely paralyzed with fear. Some of it got on his brand new sweater, too.

I’m sure you can imagine this won’t end well. In Crete, nothing ever does.