If you really want to hear about it, what follows is an account of my day. And if my findings are correct, I will figure prominently in your dreams after this. I guess that’s out of the way.
I am a plastic bag. I am sentient and free but not in total control of my life for reasons beyond my understanding, just like you. The smiley face printed on me could use some fine tuning. Its smile line is a little too straight, but still curves upward at the ends, and the effect is sinister or pervy instead of happy or neutral. What can you do. For all I know it suits me.
There are high winds tampering with my trajectory and I cannot fully collect myself like I can collect so many other things. I am flimsy, sure, but triumphant in the graceful buoyancy of this breeze.
A middle-aged white man notices me right when I’ve established my own corner of an alley. He always shaves his own head and refuses to turn his phone on vibrate. He takes photos of me from what he thinks are artful angles, the fake camera snap piercing with each take.
An unthinkable display, especially right in front of the celebrated hot dog cart man. A gust pushes in from the south and I twirl a little in its undertow, making sure hot dog cart man can see. I made sure of that from the start. I can tell my maneuver landed by the way he assesses the buns before him. He confirms with a satisfied nod in my direction. We nod back and forth for several seconds.
His cart is topped with an umbrella featuring cartoon hot dogs that appear to be dancing, in full acceptance of being eaten by you or anyone else with a mouth. The umbrella appeals to me. It must’ve been clean once.
Then I’m smashed against the brick wall of a pizzeria. Right where some hotshot graffiti artist spray-painted the words: NOSTALGIA IS A WEAPON.
This is when I hear them. The siblings. They look like college students.
“Grow up.”
“If this is what it’s like then I’ll take my time.”
They don’t get into the fact that one of them tried to marry a vintage Stretch Armstrong figurine in Vegas. Fortunately, what happens there actually does stay there, meaning the marriage was not legally binding. These two have their own rules, it’s clear, the way humans do.
“Mom’s already sold your valuables all over town and rented your room out to a boarder. I’m pretty sure.”
“You’ve got it all wrong. She has renounced you as a family member.”
Before I know it I’m delivered to a mini golf course by the shore. A rabid raccoon thinks the statue at hole four is his mother. He’s placing what looks to be an airbrushed tank top stained with sweat at her feet. Oh, and a Pringles can with only the crumbs too small to grasp left at the bottom. It’s a par three.
The beach tumbles into view. A woman in a tankini keeps asking people to bury her in the sand. At first bystanders think she’s trying to appease children who like to do that sort of thing. The real reason is she wants to be immobilized, if only temporarily. Away from everything and everyone but also in the thick of everything and everyone. Able to observe yet completely helpless and therefore not culpable, liable, or able whatsoever.
Kids don’t want to bury strangers in the sand. They want to bury their caregivers, hosting their own mini coup beside the boogie boards and aqua socks. So she starts begging. Which only makes things worse. And makes her sand burial less and less likely. She will never know how much I understand her.
I think of the produce and snacks I used to hold tight now categorized in cabinets beyond my reach.
There’s nothing left to do but wait for nightfall. I would say this trip has taken a lot out of me, but I am already empty. There was nothing inside of me to begin with.
