The Bags We Can't Carry

The Story

My childhood ended when Garrett’s lunch started talking to us. We were in the checker-tiled cafeteria when Garrett reached into his brown, paper lunch sack, and pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich dripping with mayo. Back then, we all brought the same food (ham and cheese) in the same bag (brown and crinkly), and anyone who did otherwise we ostracized on the spot—but we know better now.

Garrett shrieked, and dropped the sandwich as if it bit him. We stared him down for being a wimp. We didn’t notice when the sandwich wriggled in his hands.

We opened our mouths to make fun of him, but we were interrupted by a talking sandwich:

— It was your mistake to free me.

Its voice sounded like a cave’s roaring echo that never died away. One would expect each slice of bread to flap together as the sandwich talked, but it remained motionless on the table.

— You will play our games.

The rest of our crinkled, brown paper bags wriggled and exploded, sandwiches bursting free from their brown sacks and plastic baggies. They cheered the same cheers in voices that sounded like bubbling mud. We shrunk in our seats.

None of us knew what to do about our self-proclaimed master; none of us were used to lunches committing mutiny. We could have run because we were faster than sandwiches, or smashed them with nearby textbooks, but we froze up. My stomach turned in knots. I thought I was going to puke.

I heard screams from a table behind me. I whipped my head around and saw a pack of girls facing the same problem. I looked around. We were alone.

Our tables were the only ones left in the cafeteria; no other people, no lunch-line, no doors, no exits. We were trapped with our lunches.

“Why shouldn’t we just eat you?” Garrett asked his sandwich,

— Do you really think you can?

“Sure.” He shifted in his seat. He looked like he wanted to sit on his hands.

I watched as Garrett and his sandwich stared each other down. The air tasted caustic. My breathing sped up. If it were a movie, a paper bag would have rolled by like a tumbleweed, or the sandwich would have spat tobacco—but that’s not the real world. Life is stillest before death.

When nothing happened, I knew Garrett submitted to the sandwich.

— You, he who has freed me: come here; carry me!

I grimaced. I hated him for not trying to eat his lunch, but I knew I wouldn’t have been able to either.

— It is our will to play a game, and the black and white terrain is well-suited to it. Set us in two opposing rows of two. We have enough! Do you know how to play chess?

Some of us nodded, some of us shook our heads.

— Say aloud!

A chorus of yeses and nos echoed back.

— Well, one of you that does must switch me with the one on White King’s square, and do so in a hurry!

We tried, but made mistakes. The White King berated us for not being able to tell the difference between the sandwiches, and said our families would be disappointed in our inadequacies.

Maybe our families would have been ashamed. We were being corralled by sandwiches.

We moved our captors from square to square blindly, and they yelled at us each time we put them in the wrong place. The worst was when they wanted to take back moves, or when they argued about the rules of chess.

We watched them argue. We waited for them to declare their move. We would screw it up, and they would yell at us again. As bad as they were, we weren’t so different. We had known each other since our earliest years, yet we were as uncoordinated as the sandwiches. We got mad and snapped at each other. There was more than one occasion that someone nearly stepped on one of the sandwiches, but regrettably, there were no casualties.

We all coped differently. I resolved to grit my teeth and bear it. I tried to imagine this was like ten spankings, or ten slugs in the arm from my older brother—I’d wait it out, and when it’s over, leave it alone, forget about it.

The bell rang.

Our sandwiches had disappeared. We were sitting on the floor in the middle of the cafeteria, the other tables finishing their lunches. They jumped up and hustled out of the cafeteria, and a new wave of kids came in to eat. Some of us cried and refused to move, some went to the nurse’s office, some to class, and some managed to use this as a ticket home.

But we all left that place scared and confused. We left hungry.

I don’t know if anyone else remembers this—it’s been years, and I haven’t kept up with any of them (especially Garrett)—but I wish they didn’t. I refuse to eat sandwiches. I tell people, “I don’t like them.” I’m still trying to forget, but forgetting is painful, takes effort, and must be done alone.

Commentary

I have always appreciated absurdity. This story absolutely is that. It's short, simple, a little sad, and simply bizarre. Sometimes there is no explanation for life's oddities and we're left to cope on our own.