Archive of Our Own

1

The sharp beeping of my alarm clock pulled me from sleep, just as it had every morning for years. But as the mental fog cleared, something started to feel off. My bedroom was pitch black, devoid of even a single sliver of light creeping through the curtains. I lay still in the dark for a long moment, groggily wondering if I had somehow set the alarm too early.

The longer the noise persisted, the less it sounded like an alarm. Instead of the usual aggressive bursts of four beeps, it was a single, erratic tone that chirped at irregular intervals. It was too short, too clinical, and it lacked the predictable rhythm I usually had the displeasure of waking up to.

I tried to reach out, to smash my palm against the snooze button and retreat into the silence, but my arm refused to move. At first, I thought I had just slept on it funny, but when I couldn’t feel any of my other limbs either, a jolt of panic surged through me. There was no weight to shift, no muscles to flex. My entire body felt as flat as a freshly ironed bedsheet.

The terror only deepened as I realized I wasn’t breathing. My chest remained completely still, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t draw air into my lungs. Every attempt to gasp produced a faint noise that sounded like crinkling plastic. But strangely enough, I wasn’t suffocating.

Then I noticed the voices. They sounded muffled and distant, as if spoken through a layer of thick fabric, but I could tell they were definitely human. It suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t in my bedroom, but somewhere else entirely. As the panic faded into a numb stillness, a memory surfaced, and I promptly recalled the dream I’d had before the darkness took over.

I remembered being at the factory. My shift was nearing its end, but at the last minute, one of the production lines ground to a halt. I removed the side panel and crawled inside, finding a half-melted clump of plastic wedged between a pair of heavy steel rollers. I thought I could just pull it free and be done with it, but the moment my hand touched the warm mass, it snagged me. I felt a quick, violent tug, and then—nothing. The machine had swallowed me before I could even scream.

The truth hit me all at once—it hadn’t been a dream at all. I really had been pulled into the machine and crushed between the rollers. I had to be lying in a hospital bed with my mangled body encased in plaster and bandages. That would have explained the voices I was hearing, as well as my inability to move. And the beeping—it wasn’t an alarm clock, but a heart rate monitor. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

“Is anyone there?” I tried to call out. “Am I—”

I cut myself off in utter disbelief. The voice that had just escaped me sounded completely alien. It was thin and squeaky, almost as if it belonged to a cartoon character. Even more unsettling was the bizarre rustling noise that accompanied every syllable. The words emanating from me were so dry and scratchy that it felt like my lips were made of paper.

As time passed, the voices around me gradually became clearer. People were talking constantly, although I still couldn’t quite make out their words. Regret welled up inside me as I thought about my foolish mistake—one careless move had been enough to send me hurtling through the machine that manufactured shopping bags. I was lucky to be alive.

All of a sudden, the world burst into brightness. The flash of light dazzled me instantly, and for a moment, all I could see was white. I recoiled instinctively, or at least tried to, but there was nowhere to go. My entire being was exposed, spread thin beneath that glaring light. It somehow seemed as if it was shining right through my skin.

After a few seconds, the brightness began to soften into something I could make sense of. Dark, blurry shapes emerged at first, then sharpened into a somewhat recognizable scene. I was lying flat on a slanted surface, with a low ceiling above and a vast, open space ahead. I wasn’t lying in a hospital bed, I belatedly realized, but on a shelf of some sort.

Fear gripped me as I looked at the people standing in front of me. From my low perspective, every person towered over me like a human mountain, and even the children appeared absolutely enormous. Large metal cages rolled past me one after another, and it quickly dawned on me that they were actually shopping carts. As the beeping continued, I finally recognized it as the sound made by a barcode scanner.

The realization hit me like a blow—I was in a supermarket, sitting in a dispenser box at the start of the checkout counter. I was completely at the mercy of the customer who decided to grab me. I was a cheap, disposable container designed to carry groceries.

I was a plastic bag.

2

A woman reached for me before I could even begin to comprehend my new, synthetic existence. Her massive fingers engulfed my face, pinching my pristine plastic skin into sharp, rustling folds. A deafening, static-filled screech resonated through my weightless body as she snatched me from the box and slammed me down onto the rubber conveyor belt alongside her items.

“Hey, watch it!” I wheezed, but my soft, crinkling voice was immediately lost in the din. “I’m a human being! I need help!”

With a sudden jerk, the belt began to move. When the cashier came into view, I rustled as much as I could in an attempt to get their attention. It worked, but not in the way I’d hoped—I did manage to get them to raise an eyebrow, but instead of taking a closer look at me, they silenced me by pulling my surface taut while aligning the barcode printed on my back directly underneath the scanner.

There was a short beep, and with that, I was unceremoniously swept forward into the bagging area. A procession of groceries followed behind me, squashing me against the end of the counter. Soon enough, a hand reached between the items and wrestled me free. The woman from before loomed above me as I crinkled helplessly in her grip. Whether I liked it or not, I belonged to her now.

“Wait!” I rustled. “I’m not what I look like! I’m not a—”

Without warning, she quickly swung her arms down while holding me by the handles. My walls exploded outward as air rushed in through my opening, snapping me into shape in the blink of an eye. The rapid expansion was staggering, and I felt as if my entire body was about to disintegrate. Before I knew it, a hollow cavity had formed in the center of my polyethylene body, ready to receive groceries.

Items began to land inside me as she started filling me up with practiced efficiency. Her mechanical movements made it clear she’d packed grocery bags dozens, if not hundreds, of times in the past, briefly giving me an unexpected sense of comfort. She knew what she was doing. The heaviest items went first—two large cartons of orange juice, a bottle of laundry detergent, and a bag of fresh onions. They were promptly followed by a packet of minced meat, a head of lettuce, and a block of cheese. On the top layer, she carefully placed a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, and a generous collection of granola bars.

A feeling of unease settled over me when the last item—a tube of toothpaste—slipped inside my walls. So far, I had been resting on the solid surface of the bagging area, which supported most of the weight. The unease slowly turned to dread as I realized that all of it would soon rest upon my handles, and that I was just a flimsy plastic shell holding everything together. Inevitably, her fingers curled around my handles as she prepared to set off.

“Stop!” I cried out once more, trying my best to get her to notice me. “Please, listen to me! I’m not—urrnghh!!!”

I groaned louder than ever before as the woman lifted me up, my handles creaking noisily in protest as they strained under the weight. My thin plastic skin assumed the shape of my contents, stretching itself to its absolute limits. I begged her to put me back down, but she didn’t so much as glance down at me. To her, there was nothing extraordinary about a rustling shopping bag.

I hung heavily in her hand as the sliding doors parted and she walked out of the store. I hovered just above the pavement, swinging from side to side in time with her stride. Again and again, I tried to get her attention, but my squeaky voice disappeared in the din of the traffic every single time. The helplessness was absolutely maddening.

We continued to travel down the street. As she walked past a row of darkened windows, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. It took me a moment to even realize that the bag clutched in the woman’s hand was me.

What I saw horrified me. There was a gaudy, oversized supermarket logo emblazoned right in the center of what should have been my face—a stamp of ownership that reduced my entire identity to a piece of mobile advertising. Below the branding, the words “HIGH VALUE AT LOW COST” were printed in bright, bold letters that felt like a mockery of my very existence. I tried to hide my face in shame, but despite my best efforts, it remained exposed for the whole world to see.

The physical discomfort soon drowned out my feelings of embarrassment. The juice cartons felt like lead weights, and their corners dug into my sides like blunt knives. My entire being was a jagged, misshapen mass of plastic and groceries, bulging outward like a blister about to pop. With every step she took, my handles creaked as if they were seconds away from snapping.

“Let me down!” I screamed, but the sound was lost in the rustle of my own skin. “I can’t take it!”

In my desperation, I even tried calling all the passersby for help, but all of them ignored me as if I didn’t exist. Perhaps I didn’t—at least not in the way I once had. I was merely an object now, something for people to use as they pleased. As such, my complaints meant nothing to them.

3

After traveling through the suburbs for about fifteen minutes, the rhythmical swaying finally ceased as the woman stopped to check what I assumed was her mailbox. We had arrived in front of a small one-story house with flowerbeds dotting the front lawn. Tugging sharply at my handles to readjust the weight, she stepped onto the winding stone path leading to the door. The sound of a key turning in the lock filled me with relief, signifying that my short but arduous journey was at last coming to an end.

The door cracked open and she crossed the threshold, carrying me inside the house. Leaving the direct sunlight and entering into the cool shadows of her home felt refreshing, my tightened skin contracting slightly as soon as the heat began to dissipate.

With one final, heavy heave, she hoisted me onto the kitchen table. As she released her grip, my handles went slack for the first time in what felt like an eternity. The agonizing tension vanished in an instant, allowing my walls to slump outward in a slow, exhausted motion. My work was done—I had held together.

For the next few minutes, I watched quietly as she started taking the items out and putting them away one by one, too tired to utter a single word. The emptier I became, the less I looked like a bag and the more like a deflated balloon. Once she’d finished stowing the groceries away, the only thing breaking the silence was a clock ticking on the wall. I gathered what little strength I had and attempted to speak to her.

“Hello?” I rustled. “Can you hear—”

“Who’s there?” she gasped, eyes darting around the room. “How’d you get in my house?”

“It’s me... the bag on the table,” I said, speaking slightly louder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. But please—listen to me! I need help!”

The woman approached me cautiously, then slowly picked me up and held me at arm’s length between two of her fingers. Before I could say another word, she proceeded to check me over as if looking for a hidden speaker or something. I rustled noisily in her hands as she turned me inside out, rigorously searching through every part of my body. When she couldn’t find anything, she gripped my edges and gave me a series of sharp tugs, snapping me taut with a whip-like crackle each time.

“Ahh! Please don’t hurt me! I mean you no harm!”

“What... are you?” she whispered in disbelief, frozen in place as she stared at the crinkling pile of plastic in her hands.

“I... I’m just a guy,” I said hesitantly, then continued more urgently: “Please, just please, don’t throw me away! I’m not supposed to be like this! I’m a human being, I really am! Please, you have to believe me!”

Seemingly affected by the genuine distress in my voice, the woman laid me back down on the table and straightened me out, restoring my rectangular shape. My apprehension began to recede as her expression slowly shifted from shock to sympathy. Her palm brushed across my shiny surface, carefully smoothing out creases and crinkles. With gentle, deliberate strokes, she molded me into a perfectly flat sheet of plastic. It felt so relaxing that I briefly forgot about the way she had treated me earlier.

“There you go,” she murmured. “Sorry about the rough handling—it was not my intention to hurt you. My name’s Sarah, by the way.”

“N-Nice to meet you, Sarah,” I stuttered. “I’m—I’m sorry, I... I’m just so—”

“It’s alright, take all the time you need. There’s no reason to be afraid anymore.” She was quiet for a moment, then said: “Listen, I have to get something to eat—it’s been ages since I last ate anything. Don’t worry, I won’t be going any further than the fridge over there. Okay?”

“O-okay...”

I stared silently at the ceiling while Sarah prepared her meal. My mind was still racing, but her soothing presence had successfully allayed my fear of being thrown into the trash. Despite her initial reaction, she appeared to be a kind and caring person. Before long, she sat back down at the table, sliding a plate with a delicious-looking sandwich right next to me.

“All calmed down now?” she asked softly, her face hovering over me as if I were a baby that had just been changed. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m so confused,” I replied. “I still can’t believe this is actually happening...”

“I’m sure everything’s going to be okay. Let’s start from the beginning—who are you, and where did you come from?”

I proceeded to explain my story to Sarah in as much detail as I could—who I was, how I’d found myself at the checkout, how what I initially thought was a dream had turned out to be real. She didn’t comment much and mostly just nodded while eating her sandwich, but she clearly believed my every word. How could she not when the shopping bag on her kitchen table was literally talking to her?

“That’s quite the predicament,” she said, brushing away the breadcrumbs that had landed on me. “Don’t worry, I will look after you until we figure this out. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“I’d like to be alone for a while,” I sighed. “I need some time to think. Oh, and... thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmured, glancing up at the wall clock. “I probably shouldn’t leave you sitting out on the table, though—my husband will be home any minute. Luckily, I have a perfect place for you.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, a sharp crease split my face in half, my vision turning dim as she folded my face in on itself. It wasn’t painful, but it felt extremely unnatural. My body wasn’t supposed to bend that way, but nevertheless, it did so without a hint of resistance. Soon enough, her nimble hands had turned me into a neat little square the size of a napkin. With my face folded over itself so many times, I could hardly see anything more than a jumbled patchwork of my own surface.

“You’ll be safe here,” Sarah said as she placed me in one of the kitchen drawers, tucking me beneath what felt like other folded up plastic bags. “I’ll check on you tomorrow. The future will start to look brighter once you’ve had some time to think about things—I promise.”

With that, the drawer clicked shut, and pitch black swallowed my world. The silence was absolute—not even the ticking of the clock could penetrate the empty void I found myself in.

4

Time unraveled in the darkness of the drawer. At first, I tried to count it, to measure it in something familiar like seconds, breaths, or heartbeats, but I didn’t have any of those anymore. No pulse to follow, no lungs to rise and fall, no ticks to listen to. Nothing but endless, uninterrupted stillness.

The silence didn’t change. The blackness didn’t change. Around me, the other bags remained exactly as they had been—thin, folded, empty. They didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t even exist in any meaningful way. And the longer I lay among them, the harder it became to ignore the possibility that, sooner or later, I wouldn’t do those things either.

“What if she forgets about me?” I thought to myself. “What if she already has? What if she thinks I’m just a figment of her imagination when she wakes up? What if the next time she looks into the drawer, all she sees is a pile of perfectly normal plastic bags just waiting to be used?”

And just like that, my imagination ran away with me.

I kept calling her name, feeling like a child afraid of the dark. But no matter how much I cried, she didn’t come back. Eventually, I lost hope and gave up, surrendering to the oppressive quietness of the drawer. The total lack of sensation made me wonder if this was what being dead felt like.

But then—a flicker of light appeared in the corner of my vision with a startlingly loud crack. Warm fingers closed softly around me, pulling me out of the darkness. Sunlight flooded my glossy surface as I was unfolded, blinding me momentarily.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead! I hope you slept well,” Sarah said with a smile as she appeared in my vision. Her smile faded when I didn’t reply. “What’s wrong?”

“What day is it?” I asked hesitantly.

“What do you mean? It’s the next day—you were only in there for one night.”

“Oh,” I rustled with a mix of relief and embarrassment. “To be honest, it felt a lot longer than that.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know... long enough to make me think you were never coming back.”

“You poor thing,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have shoved you in that drawer and just left you there. But for some reason, it seemed like the best place for you. Putting you there just seemed... normal.”

“Because that’s where you keep all your plastic bags? Because that’s precisely how you saw me?”

Sarah flinched slightly, her fingers freezing against my edge. She looked down at the crinkled sheet in her hands with a shadow of guilt crossing her face. Finally, she nodded slowly.

Something suddenly shifted inside me. I had tried to hold on to the idea of being human, thinking that this was just some sort of injury doctors would be able to fix. But as her fingers made my skin crinkle yet again, I reluctantly admitted the truth—I wasn’t a man made out of flesh and blood anymore. I was a shopping bag made out of low-density polyethylene—and that was all I would ever be.

“I guess I can’t blame you for thinking that,” I said at last. “I mean... just look at me. I’m flat and flimsy and there’s this stupid logo where my face should be. I’m so thin you can see right through my skin. I’m nothing but a worthless piece of plastic.”

“Don’t say that—you’re much more than that.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“You’re still a person,” she said. “You still have value.”

“What value is that? The twenty cents you paid for me at the grocery store? Or are you talking about the tacky slogan stamped across my face?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, what else is there? My only real value is measured in how much stuff I can carry. People don’t value me—they value the fact that I can keep their bicycle seat dry in the rain or line their bin so they don’t have to get their hands dirty. I’m just a convenience. I’m not a person you care about... I’m a tool you use until I wear out, and once I do, I’m just trash.”

“I do care about you,” she assured me. “You just have to believe that.”

I wanted to believe her, I really did. I wanted to cling to her comforting words and never let go. But deep inside, I knew I just wasn’t a real person—not anymore. I was a container, simple as that. And yet, she still claimed to care about me.

“If you really mean that,” I said after a moment’s consideration, “then let me show you my true value. I’m made for carrying things, so maybe... maybe that’s exactly what I should do. That’s all I can do, when you think about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to use me... like you would any other bag. I want to be useful.”

Silence followed. I could feel her hesitation in the way she was holding me, the slight tension in her grip. She moved her chair back and laid me across her lap, pulling my edges until my face was stretched taut over her thighs. I felt the heat of her legs spreading through me as I waited for her to make up her mind. After staring at me for a minute, she laid me back on the table.

“I’m not sure if I should,” she said, letting out a long sigh. “That just doesn’t feel right.”

“I know it doesn’t,” I replied quietly. “But what choice do I have? I can’t move around on my own, and I can barely speak. I’m completely helpless. Please... I need you.”

“What about your family? Or friends? Wouldn’t it be better to take you back to your loved ones? I’m sure they miss you.”

Her suggestion hit harder than I thought it would. For a moment, I imagined being with my friends again, in familiar places, doing familiar things. Not as my old self, but as this thin, rectangular shape with a brightly colored logo printed on it. I felt something tighten inside me.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to see them?”

“Of course I do,” I said mournfully. “But I don’t know how they’d react, and I’m not sure I want to find out. And... I don’t want them to see me like this.” The words suddenly felt heavier than I expected. “I’d rather they remember me the way I was. Not... this.”

Sarah remained silent.

“This bag... it isn’t... it’s not me,” I insisted, though I wasn’t sure that was actually true. “And this logo... it’s not my face. Not my real face, anyway. It’s not who I really am.”

“Okay,” she simply said. “But if you ever happen to change your mind, just let me know.”

With that, a hush fell over the room. Neither of us spoke for several minutes. Sarah fiddled absently with one of my handles, rolling the plastic between her fingers. I lay flat on the table, staring quietly at the ceiling. Eventually, she leaned back in her chair and looked out of the window, gazing thoughtfully into the distance.

“So... what now?” she asked. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“That’s up to you,” I told her candidly. “If you want to fold me up and stick me back into that drawer, I’ll be powerless to stop you. If you want to throw me in the trash in order to get rid of me, there’s not much I can do about it. At the end of the day, my life is in your hands.”

“What are you saying?”

“What I’m trying to say,” I continued, “is that I don’t want to be a burden to you. I trust that you’ll be considerate, but I don’t want you to pamper me. I may be helpless, but I’m not a baby. Like I said before, I just want you to use me like you would any other plastic bag. That’s all I ask.”

The kitchen fell silent once more.

“As you wish,” she sighed after a while. “But—I won’t treat you like you don’t matter, and I’ll try to be as careful as I can. If you think that’s pampering, I’m not having any of it. Bag or not, you still deserve to be treated with respect.”

5

After getting up from her chair, Sarah immediately folded me into a tight square and left me on the countertop on her way out of the kitchen. I was a little disappointed at first, but then I realized that being treated like an object from now on was something I simply had to get used to. With nothing better to do, I started to think about my strange new reality.

I wasn’t sure how to feel. My family and my friends were still out there, but I didn’t have the courage to face them. There was this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that they would just laugh at me, abandon me, throw me in the trash as soon as they saw me. I knew it wasn’t rational, but then again, neither was the fact that I’d been turned into a shopping bag. I could only hope things would become clearer with time.

Sarah was different, though. She had known me this way from the very first moment she pulled me from the dispenser at the supermarket. She had seen me for exactly what I was, and yet, she hadn’t discarded me. If there was even one person in the world I could trust anymore, it was her. She was my owner, and I was her property.

An hour or two later, she returned. I couldn’t see much of anything from where I lay, but I could hear a knife thudding against a wooden cutting board right next to me. She had probably just started preparing lunch or something. I didn’t want to be a nuisance, so I chose to stay silent unless spoken to. It was strange to think how I’d once taken for granted the ability to turn my head or close my eyes, but now, I was at the mercy of how my body had been creased. Every clink of a glass and scrape of a chair leg felt like a jumpscare I couldn’t brace for. Maybe this was what it felt like to be both paralyzed and partially blind.

Eventually, the room grew quiet again. I lay idly on the counter for hours, waiting for something to happen. The ticking of the clock seemed to be getting louder over time. That, or I was just slowly becoming more sensitive to it. I hadn’t so much as crinkled since she had dropped me here in the morning, and I was bored out of my mind.

Then, without warning, the pressure came. Fingers closed firmly around me, hoisting me into the air with a suddenness that felt almost dizzying after being still for so long. For a second, I feared it wasn’t her at all, but someone else. Thankfully, Sarah’s familiar face emerged into view as soon as my body began to unfurl with a sharp crackle.

“I’m going to take the dog out for a walk,” she said, holding up a leash in her other hand. “Do you want to come with me?”

“You’re not planning to use me to clean up after it, are you?” I asked hesitantly. “I know I said I want to be useful, but—”

“No, nothing like that,” she assured me. “I just thought I’d carry you around with nothing inside. No weight, no strain. Just to see how it makes you feel.”

“Sure, why not? Sounds like it could be fun.”

A pang of apprehension shot through me as soon as I saw the German Shepherd waiting in the hall. To me, her four-legged friend looked so large that it might as well have been a brown, furry elephant. Sarah attached the leash to the collar around its neck and reached for the door handle, but suddenly stopped short and glanced down at me.

“Oh, right,” she said. “There’s something we should probably do first.”

“Huh? Wait, what are you—”

With a brisk hand motion, Sarah snapped my limp body into shape and shoved me right under the dog’s nose. The beast stared at me fiercely, its amber eyes tracing over me like a pair of laser beams. I crinkled with fear, but she didn’t seem to notice. Warm air washed over me in short bursts, each exhale making my surface tremble. The experience was overwhelming—the moist breath, the proximity, the sheer size of it. All of that while I was being presented to the dog as if I were some kind of tasty treat. I had never felt so fragile in my life.

“S-Sarah,” I stuttered, my voice thinning into a nervous rustle. “Is this really—”

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I just want him to get used to you. Trust me, this is for your own safety.”

The dog sniffed me again, more insistently this time, its nose brushing lightly against the logo on my face. The contact sent a sharp ripple through me—not painful, but intense. It opened its mouth, revealing a set of white teeth capable of reducing me to a pile of shreds on the floor. I didn’t dare utter a single word.

My body crinkled crisply in her hands when an unfamiliar texture suddenly spread across my surface. It felt wet, warm, and wrong in a way I couldn’t put into words, causing me to let out a small, involuntary squeak. The dog pulled back, then immediately went in for another lick, as if trying to understand what I was.

After a while, the inquisitive canine seemed to lose interest. It gave me one last curious sniff, then stepped back, its attention already drifting elsewhere. I sagged slightly in her grip, a faint rustle of relief escaping me. She pulled a napkin out of her pocket and proceeded to wipe the drool off my face.

“That was terrifying,” I admitted. “I thought it was going to eat me.”

“He was just curious,” she said, flashing a small smile. “Now he knows you’re not something to chew on.”

I wasn’t entirely convinced of that, but at least I was still intact. I hadn’t been bitten, I hadn’t been torn apart, I hadn’t been buried in the backyard. That had to count for something, I tried to tell myself.

Sarah slipped her fingers around my handles, letting me hang loosely by her side as she turned toward the door. All of a sudden, the German Shepherd next to me started rubbing its head on my face, pinning me up against her leg. The fluffy fur felt warm and soft, almost as sleek as my own skin.

“Looks like he likes you,” Sarah chuckled, pulling me free.

“Is that a good thing?”

“He’s not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re asking. Shall we go, then?”

“Yeah... I think I’m ready.”

And with that, she opened the door and carried me outside, light and empty in her hand, into a world that somehow felt a little less welcoming than I remembered. But with her holding me by the handles, maybe—just maybe—the world would eventually begin to feel a little less hopeless.

6

The instant Sarah stepped out of the shadow of the porch, sunlight flooded me, turning my glossy surface into a glittering, incandescent veil. The weather was bright and breezy, practically perfect for taking a dog for a walk. In the warmth of it all, I dared to hope that it might be perfect weather for me, too. With me in her left hand and the leash in the other, we set off.

A gust of wind presented itself as soon as we reached the sidewalk, and my entire body twisted upward in response, flapping violently against itself in her hand. I wasn’t heavy enough to resist it—not even close. I was just a sheet of plastic caught in what felt like a hurricane. The world spun around me in a series of disjointed fragments as I whipped back and forth with the current. The street, the sky, the trees—everything flashed in my vision too quickly to make any sense of.

“Help!” I cried out as loud as I could. “I can’t—I can’t stay still! Sarah! Put me in your pocket or something!”

She didn’t react in any way. Not because she was ignoring me, I belatedly realized, but because she simply didn’t register what was happening. She couldn’t hear my voice over the wind howling around us. To her, I was just an empty bag fluttering in her hand. Bags didn’t get dizzy. Bags didn’t struggle with wind. Bags didn’t experience the world as something hostile.

But I did.

Then, out of the blue, disaster struck. As she adjusted her grip, a sudden gust of wind made me billow like a sail, ripping my handles from her fingers. Before she even realized what had happened, I was already spiraling like a kite several meters above her head.

Soaring higher still, I was carried across the road we’d been walking along, and Sarah had to wait for the traffic to pass before she could cross over to the other side. I caught a brief glimpse of her and the dog just before they disappeared behind the corner of a building. The gust finally let up and I began to descend, but instead of getting stuck on a roof or in a tree, I landed right in the middle of a busy intersection.

The lights turned green the moment I touched the pavement. A bus lurched into motion, its massive tires growing larger until they loomed over me like falling walls. The heavy rubber stamped me into the road, flattening my body into an indiscernible mess of crumpled plastic. A column of passenger cars followed behind the bus, each of their wheels making me feel like an insect being stepped on.

Panic seized me when I suddenly spotted a street sweeper slowly approaching me in the distance. Its rapidly rotating brushes kicked up dust, dirt, and debris, all of which was vacuumed into a large collection tank fitted to the back of the vehicle. To the unfeeling machine, I was just a smudge of white waiting to be erased. If Sarah didn’t pick me up soon, there would be nothing left for her to pick up.

Mere moments before the bellowing machine swept me away, a truck passed me by in the next lane, creating a vortex strong enough to suck me into its wake. As I careened through the air, the wind managed to catch hold of me again, carrying me effortlessly over a tall fence and into a park. I still wasn’t safe, but at least I was no longer in immediate danger. Grass, trees and flowerbeds spun wildly in my vision as I rolled across the park.

All of a sudden, something jagged clasped firmly around me, finally stopping me from tumbling along the ground. My relief was quickly replaced by dread when I realized what that something was. To my awe, I found myself hanging limply in the jaws of the German Shepherd like a dead rabbit. Without delay, it turned around and ran back to Sarah.

“Good boy!” she said proudly, clipping the leash back on. “Now, give that to me.”

The dog relinquished its grip on me without a fuss. Sarah quickly checked me over for any damage, then let out a sigh of relief. My body was dusty, wrinkled, and covered in drool, but otherwise perfectly intact.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, dusting me off a bit. “Are you alright?”

“I... I think so,” I stuttered, still feeling a little shaken. “It all happened so fast... I just... I couldn’t do anything.”

“Maybe this’ll help,” she muttered, bending down to pick a few stones from the ground. I felt a shift as she placed them inside me, the weight tugging down at my bottom seam. “There—that should keep the wind from bullying you.”

When a gust hit me again, I swung harmlessly from side to side. I could still feel the wind rushing past my surface and making it quiver, but I was no longer helpless against it. It was hard to believe that a handful of rocks had been enough to stabilize me, but then again, each of them had to be at least twenty times heavier than my entire body.

“Better?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I rustled quietly. “A lot better. Thanks.”

I hung at her side as she resumed walking, the added weight grounding me into something that vaguely resembled balance. For a while, it was almost peaceful to sway gently in her hand and let the golden sunlight warm me up. I soon sunk into my thoughts and continued to contemplate the strange new world I found myself in.

Many of the people we came across also carried bags of some kind, even ones that looked identical to me. A part of me wished to ask the bags how they were doing, what they were thinking about, whether they were happy or sad. Yet, none of them appeared troubled to me, nor did any of them seem to struggle under the load they were carrying.

Eventually, Sarah stopped for seemingly no reason. The dog sniffed the grass and spun in place for a moment, then arched its back and lifted its tail. I didn’t fully understand what was happening until it was already underway.

Sarah turned her gaze away, but I had no such luxury. She probably didn’t even realize that I couldn’t decide what I was looking at. I tried to ask her to turn me around, but another blow of wind drowned out my voice at the worst possible time. All I could do was squirm uncomfortably as I was forced to stare at the brown pudding that continued to ooze out of the dog’s behind, witnessing the biological event in full detail.

When it was finally over, she sighed and reached into her pocket, taking out another bag. It was smaller than me and clearly designed for the task at hand. Without hesitation, she slipped the bag over her fingers like a glove and pressed it against the pile of muck, scooping the waste into it with a practiced motion. Then she tied the bag shut and tossed it into a nearby bin.

“Okay,” she said, as if nothing particularly significant had happened. “Let’s move on.”

We started walking again, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it—the other bag, specifically. Even if it wasn’t sentient like me, I couldn’t help but feel bad for it. Maybe I was just afraid that I would share its fate one day. The more I thought about it, the more grateful I became that I’d been made into a grocery bag instead. With an owner like Sarah, the prospect now felt a little less daunting.

For the rest of the walk, I swayed silently in her hand, feeling the stones shifting inside me with every step. After a while, my quietness made her concerned, and she lifted me up to her eye level to check on me. I didn’t say anything, but I appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

Before long, we were back at her house. She removed the rocks one by one, setting them down on the edge of the porch in case they would be needed again in the future. The dog sniffed me once more, but I didn’t even flinch this time. The enormous canine standing next to me suddenly seemed far less threatening than before. By now, it had earned my complete trust.

“Looks like my husband is already back from work,” Sarah said as she noticed the car on the driveway that hadn’t been there when we left. “Do you want me to introduce you to him?”

“I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. “There’s just so much to take in, it’s getting a little overwhelming. Maybe some other day, if that’s not too much to ask. I’ll just stay quiet for now when he’s around.”

“That’s alright,” she murmured. “Take your time.”

We found her husband in the living room, filling half of the couch with his broad, muscular frame, arms tucked behind his head as he watched television. He slowly glanced up as we entered, giving Sarah a brief but welcoming wave.

“Hi, honey!” she said cheerily. “How was your day?”

“Same old, same old,” the man replied, then pointed a finger in my direction. “What’ve you got there?”

“Oh, this?” she asked, holding me higher. “It’s just an empty bag I found lying on the ground. I thought I might as well pick it up, you know, and maybe use it for something. One less piece of trash littering the streets.”

Even though I knew she was just making things up, being called a piece of trash stung more than I expected. At the end of the day, it wasn’t all that far from the truth. It was just another painful reminder that I was nothing more than a worthless piece of plastic that might become refuse at a moment’s notice.

“Uh-huh,” the man uttered with disinterest, turning his attention back to the show he was watching.

Sarah brought me into the kitchen, laid me down on the counter, and wiped me clean with a wet towel before hanging me from a small hook on the wall, next to a pair of oven mitts. From my new vantage point, I watched as she filled two dog bowls with water and kibble. Soon enough, she walked through the doorway and joined her husband in the living room, leaving me on the wall.

Opposite me, a window reflected the television screen flickering in the adjacent room. The blurry reflection didn’t provide much in the way of entertainment, but it was all I had. The sound, at least, was perfectly clear. Despite my circumstances, being somewhat able to enjoy a TV show brought back a sense of normalcy.

At some point, the dog came into the kitchen and started munching on the food. After finishing its meal, it sat down on the carpet and looked at me with curious eyes, tilting its head slightly.

“Thanks,” I whispered. “You’re all right, I guess.”

The dog gave a playful bark and zoomed out of the room.

I spent the rest of the day hanging lazily from the hook, grateful that she hadn’t left me folded up on the counter this time. As the sky outside the window turned orange, I began to wonder if it was possible for me to fall asleep. It had been a long and difficult day, but in spite of all the hardship, I was eager to see what tomorrow would bring.

7

Morning arrived sooner than I expected.

I hadn’t actually slept during the night—at least I didn’t think I had—but had instead fallen into some sort of trance. As far as I could tell, I had only looked at the streetlights flickering outside the window for a couple of hours before the sun started to rise again. Maybe that, too, had something to do with my new, synthetic body.

Sarah and her husband appeared in the kitchen a while later and started to make breakfast. Listening to them talk, I quickly learned that the man’s name was Scott. I chose to remain quiet, not wanting to intrude on their conversation. More than that, I didn’t want to freak him out. It would be far better for her to carefully introduce me to him.

After breakfast, Sarah kissed her husband on the cheek and left for work. Scott, on the other hand, had a day off and was planning to hit the gym after doing a bit of cleaning around the house. Little did he know, the dog wasn’t the only thing silently observing his movements.

A prickle of unease ran through me when he later entered the room with a roaring vacuum cleaner. My body was so light and airy that I could feel myself being drawn closer to the intake every time it glided past me on the floor. But then, as Scott raised the hose to vacuum the countertop, the nozzle swung right past me and caught my corner.

My lower half was instantly sucked in, crumpling into a narrow tail. Thankfully, the hook I was hanging from kept me from being swallowed entirely—or at least it would have, had Scott not decided to grab me by the handles and lift me off. I screamed in terror as he fed me deeper into the hose, air whizzing past me ever louder as he cleaned the dust off me. Beneath the deafening noise, I begged him not to let go of my handles.

At last, I was yanked out of the hose and returned to the hook on the wall, my surface quivering after the frightening experience. The man hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, making it abundantly clear that Sarah had not yet told him the truth about me. In his eyes, I was just a lifeless piece of plastic like any other.

When the trembling finally ceased, I tried my best to get Scott’s attention. I realized he might be freaked out by a talking bag, but I desperately wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any more mishaps. My weak, papery voice, however, was immediately drowned out by the vacuum’s relentless whining echoing throughout the residence. I’d have to wait until he turned it off.

Twenty minutes later, the whirring noise died down and the house grew quiet again. The silence felt heavy, almost ominous. Scott soon returned to the kitchen with a backpack in his hand.

“Uh, Scott?” I rustled cautiously. When he didn’t react, I tried again, louder. “Scott? Can you hear me? Hello? It’s me—the bag on the wall. I know this sounds crazy, but—”

As he walked up to the sink to fill his water bottle, I noticed that he was wearing earbuds. Once he turned the faucet off, I could faintly hear the music pounding in his ears. It became evident that Sarah would have to introduce me to him once she got back from work, but I didn’t mind hanging around until then—it wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

I watched absently as Scott packed into his backpack a bunch of gym clothes, a pair of sneakers, a towel, and the aforementioned water bottle. Just as he was about to leave, his eyes suddenly locked onto me like a predator spotting its prey. Before I could even react, he snatched me from the hook and proceeded to fold me up haphazardly. My body rustled noisily as he crumpled me up, sliding me into the mesh pocket on the side of his backpack.

“Put me back!” I yelled as loud as I could, but to no avail. “There are more bags in the drawer—take one of them instead!”

A surge of panic shot through my plastic spine as he flung the backpack over his shoulder and stepped out of the door. It was difficult to see anything with my face full of creases and crinkles, but I managed to catch tiny glimpses of my surroundings as the man walked down the street at a brisk pace.

“Okay, calm down,” I told myself. “There should be nothing to worry about. I don’t know what he’s planning to do with me, but it can’t be all that bad. Maybe he’s just going to do some shopping on the way back? I can handle that—it’s what I’m made for, after all. I’ll just remain quiet, and I should get back safe and sound.”

After arriving at the gym, a metallic clang rang out as Scott slammed his locker shut, locking me away in the dark with his backpack. Beyond the metal walls lay a world of muffled voices and the distant hiss of showers. There was nothing I could do but wait for him to return.

Almost two hours passed before light finally flooded back in. Scott reached into the locker, opened his backpack, and started to change his clothes. Without warning, thick fingers pinched my edges, sliding me from the pocket and unfolding me. My body gave a loud, defiant pop as it snapped violently into shape. Before I had the chance to gather myself, the humid weight of his sweaty gym gear swamped me.

The smell hit me all at once—strong, acrid, unmistakably human in a way that was far less pleasant than anything I had experienced before. The thought of his dirty underwear nesting inside me made me recoil, but no one paid any attention to my frantic rustling. More clothes followed, filling me further and pressing the earlier layers down. My soft, pliable body adjusted around them with ease, conforming to their shape, holding everything together. He tied my handles into a loose knot, securing the bundle, and casually stuffed me into his backpack.

Darkness fell, but the smell lingered. There was no escaping it, and it had no way of escaping me. That was the whole point—I was there to trap the smell and protect the inside of his backpack against sweat stains. Admittedly, my impermeable plastic skin was perfect for the job. Recognizing that fact didn’t make me feel any less queasy, however.

Back home, Scott unzipped his backpack and reached for me. I was dragged out without care, still holding the damp, suffocating bundle inside me, and was flipped upside down above a hamper. Relief washed over me as the dirty clothes fell out and fresh air rushed in to fill the void. The stench didn’t go away entirely, but now it was at least manageable.

As I dangled from his hand feeling completely spent, something strange happened—a faint flicker of pride lit up inside me. Despite the horrible smell and rough handling, I had actually served a real purpose. Scott hadn’t taken me with him just for the sake of it—he had done it because I was essential to him. He needed a bag like me and had put me to good use.

“Happy to help,” I rustled feebly as we returned to the kitchen. “Now, if you could just hang me back on that—nnnghh!!!”

Without any kind of warning, Scott scrunched me up, crushing me into a tiny ball. Air hissed out between the creases as I became more compact than I thought was even possible. He crammed my entire body inside his clenched fist and started squeezing me repeatedly as if I were some sort of stress toy. Somehow, it felt even worse than getting run over by all those cars the previous day.

“Let go of me! I’m not—nnnghh—what you think I—hnnghhh!!!”

There was no stopping the brute. No matter how much I screamed, he didn’t hear me, or at least, didn’t hear what I was trying to say. I squeaked like a mouse with every squeeze, which the man seemed to find amusing. The unintentional torment only ceased once I managed to force myself to stop making funny sounds, after which he quickly lost interest in toying with me.

I groaned in relief when the man finally released me from his iron grip. There was a brief moment of weightlessness, followed by a soft splat as I made contact with something sticky. The tension in my body expanded me slightly, trying its best to undo the thousands of creases and crinkles impressed into my surface. Only then did I notice the sharp smell that hadn’t been left behind by his sweaty clothes. It slowly started to dawn on me that I had been thrown into the trash.

8

I waited.

Hours passed, but no one came looking for me. Sarah still hadn’t returned from work, or if she had, she hadn’t yet noticed I wasn’t hanging from the hook. The pungent stench of spoiled food and damp cardboard was seeping into every nook and cranny of my crumpled frame, making me reek just as much as the rest of the trash. I felt utterly miserable.

Frustration bubbled inside me, but I couldn’t bring myself to be angry at Scott. He hadn’t thrown me in here out of malice—he had simply cleaned out his stinky gym bag that had served its thankless purpose, blissfully unaware that the ball of plastic he’d tossed into the bin was actually sentient. It was yet another cruel reminder of how thoughtlessly disposable I had been designed to be.

“Sarah!” I cried out again and again at the slightest sound. “I’m in the bin! Get me out!”

At long last, the bin suddenly shifted. Light flooded into the container as it was pulled out of the cabinet under the sink. I anxiously waited for Sarah’s hands to reach down into the bin and pluck me from the pile of rubbish, but they never did. To my dismay, the person looming above me wasn’t her—it was Scott.

In the corner of my heavily distorted vision, I could see him gathering the rim of the bin liner and twisting it into a knot, trapping me inside. The black walls constricted as he yanked the liner upward, hoisting me out of the bin. I shrieked as loud as I could, but as usual, my pathetic voice was almost indistinguishable from the refuse rustling around me.

I felt a flicker of hope when I heard Sarah’s voice in the hall—she was finally back. Unfortunately, the hope vanished as quickly as it appeared when Scott brushed right past her, carrying me straight out of the front door.

“Where are you off to now?” she yelled after him from the porch. “You promised to help me with—”

“Yeah, I’ll be right with you,” he shouted back over his shoulder. “I’ll just take the trash out first. The collector will be here any minute.”

Everything around me shuddered as the liner landed on the bottom of the wheelie bin with a heavy thump. The lid slammed shut somewhere above me, shrouding me in darkness once again. Only this time, I feared it would last forever.

“How long will it take until she notices I’m not where she left me?” I thought frantically. “She has to get me out of here before—”

All of a sudden, a low, deep rumble shook the walls of the wheelie bin, followed by the sharp hiss of hydraulic brakes pulling up next to the curb. The garbage truck had arrived.

Despair hit me the moment the bin tilted back and its wheels began to rattle over the pavement. I was just another piece of trash destined for the landfill, doomed to be forgotten the instant I was buried beneath the filth. But while organic matter would decay and find peace within months, my plastic body was cursed to survive for centuries. If I had to endure all that while remaining fully conscious, I was absolutely certain I’d have lost my mind by the end of it.

“I guess it was always going to end like this,” I sighed defeatedly. “Goodbye, Sarah... I know you tried your best to help me, but it just wasn’t enough. I’m a humble plastic bag, and this is the way the world treats the likes of me. I guess I wasn’t really a person, after all.”

“Hold it!” a distant shout rang out, accompanied by the hurried pounding of footsteps. “Please—I have to check something! I think something got thrown out by accident! It’ll only take a second!”

I could hardly believe it—the lid flung open and the liner I was in suddenly jumped upward, leaving the murky depths of the bin behind. Relief washed over me as I heard Sarah thanking the collector for their patience—she had just saved me from untold years of misery and loneliness.

“What was that all about?” Scott asked at the door, visibly confused. “You’re always complaining that I never take the trash out, and the moment I do—”

“I’ll explain in a minute,” she replied hastily, locking herself into the bathroom with the grimy garbage bag. “Love you!”

I watched as the knot unraveled above me and Sarah’s familiar face appeared in the opening, her eyes wide with concern as she peered down into the abyss to find me. Unable to locate me at first, she held the liner perfectly still to prevent it from making noise and drowning out my feeble cries.

“Hello?” she whispered. “Please say something!”

“Here...” I rustled weakly. “Let me out... please...”

She reached out toward the sound and grabbed me, pulling me into the light. Her shocked expression revealed that she hadn’t expected to find a small, crumpled package, but that was the state her husband had left me in. She uncrinkled my body slowly and methodically, careful not to cause any tears. Seeing her wrinkle her nose at the smell made me feel as if I were a soiled diaper she was reluctantly unwrapping.

“Are you okay?” she asked, holding me at arm’s length.

“I guess so,” I replied. “At the very least, I’m more okay than I likely would’ve been had you not found me. Without you, I’d be on my way to the dump by now.”

“Without me,” she said quietly, “you wouldn’t have ended up in that situation to begin with. This is all my fault.”

“No, it’s not... it was just bad luck. Thank you so much for coming back to save me.”

“Don’t mention it,” she giggled. “Now, let’s clean you up a little, shall we? You look like you could use a bath.”

Before I could say any more, Sarah turned toward the sink and reached for the faucet. The sound of rushing water drowned out my thoughts as she lowered me into the warm, soapy depths. Then, she started to clean me. Her hands worked diligently, scrubbing away the grime and sweat with a gentleness I couldn’t express in words. My plastic skin squeaked between her palms, and trapped pockets of air bubbled to the surface whenever she pressed me beneath the lather.

Satisfied with her handiwork, she rinsed off the suds and held me up, letting the last of the water trickle down my sides. After a couple of jarring shakes, she turned to the side and carried me to the drying rack.

“There,” Sarah murmured as she draped me over one of the bars. “All better now.”

I flinched when she clipped me in place with two clothespins as if I were just another piece of laundry. They pinched my edges sharply, but I chose not to complain. Despite the slight tingling sensation, a calming sense of security settled over me. Her footsteps soon faded away, followed by the door clicking shut. The ceiling light flickered off and the room stilled, leaving only the sound of water dripping from me to break the silence.

9

Once I had dried, Sarah decided it was time to finally introduce me to her husband. After removing me from the rack, she laid me down on the coffee table in the living room and asked her spouse to join her on the couch. Scott was absolutely flabbergasted when audible words started to rustle out of the empty shopping bag right before his eyes.

For the next few minutes, he just listened silently as Sarah and I explained the situation to him. When we were finished, she gestured for him to pick me up from the table. Scott was somewhat reluctant to do so, but eventually, he reached out and lifted me carefully by the handles, trying his best to avoid creasing me. I could feel his hands shaking slightly.

“Is this okay?” he asked, looking a little uncertain. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I replied with an amused rustle. “You were nowhere near this gentle when you stuffed all those clothes into me. Or when you crushed me into a ball and made me squeak.”

“Sorry about all that,” he said sheepishly. “I assumed you were just a regular plastic bag.”

“Just like everybody else... I’m not all that different from the others, it seems.”

“Well, for one, you can talk,” Scott pointed out. He was now examining me with more confidence, turning my body this way and that. “How does it feel to be so thin and flexible?”

“To tell you the truth, it makes me feel like a total pushover,” I admitted. “Imagine someone twisting your limbs however they please, and you couldn’t do a thing to stop them—that’s what it’s like for me. It’s frustrating at times, but I’m trying my best to adjust.”

“That sounds awful,” Scott said, laying me swiftly back down on the table. “Don’t worry, I won’t be using you for anything ever again.”

“No, don’t say that—that’s not what I want. I want to be used. Please, let me do the only thing I’m still good for.”

“Why would you want that?”

“There’s no point trying to fight what I am,” I rustled quietly. “If my fate is to be a plastic bag, then I might as well be treated like one. You’ve both already done it, so you know I can handle whatever you throw at me, or rather, in me.”

“It would be wrong,” Scott tried to argue. “It feels like we’re taking advantage of you.”

“You are,” I said bluntly, “but I don’t mind. I was made to carry stuff, and there’s nothing else for me to do. The last thing I want is to lose even that. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting in a drawer, empty and forgotten.”

“Aren’t you worried about tearing? Plastic bags aren’t exactly known for their durability, you know.”

“That is a risk, I must admit. But after everything I’ve been through these last few days, I feel like I’m not quite as flimsy as I initially thought. I’ve survived heavy groceries, the wheels of a bus, and even the teeth of your dog—all without a single tear.”

My unyielding persistence finally seemed to wear him down. Letting out a long sigh, he picked me up again, gently pulling my edges and rubbing them between his fingers.

“You’re definitely thicker than the average shopping bag, by the feel of it,” he said, holding me up to the light. “I’m pretty sure even heavy-duty contractor bags pale in comparison. Maybe it has something to do with how you... well, how you came to be.”

The thought of human tissue being fused into my new body made me shudder, but after a moment’s consideration, I reasoned that the added thickness must have come from the clump of plastic I had tried to clear from the rollers back at the factory. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what had become of my old body. Had it been found, or had the machine consumed it entirely? I would likely never know.

“So, does that mean you will use me?” I asked, pushing the grim thoughts out of my mind. “Even if it’s for your gym clothes again, I promise not to complain. I’d be happy to make myself useful in any way I—ugh!!!”

Without letting me finish, Scott tugged sharply at my edges and snapped my face taut, unleashing a deafening pop that echoed through the room. I hadn’t even known I was capable of making such a sound. Maintaining his grip, he began to pull outward with a slow, steady pressure. My vision widened slightly as my face began to stretch.

“Stop it!” Sarah yelled, slapping his wrist. “You’re hurting him!”

At her command, the tension vanished. My view instantly returned to its normal proportions, though my edges still tingled from the strain.

“I just wanted to test his mettle,” Scott said, laying me carefully on his lap. “You know... to make sure he can withstand sustained use. Are you alright, little buddy? I hope I wasn’t too rough on you.”

“I’m okay,” I replied giddily. “A little warning next time would be nice, though.”

“You got it,” he chuckled, checking his watch. “But listen—I was planning to stock up on a few things before the store closes. If you want to be useful, this is your time to shine. What do you say?”

“Uh, sure,” I rustled hesitantly. Going on another grocery run so soon wasn’t something I had expected, but I didn’t want to go back on my word. Gathering my courage, I added: “At your service.”

My vision turned into a kaleidoscope of retail branding the instant Scott started folding me up. Once I was compact enough to fit in his palm, he slipped me into the back pocket of his jeans. I felt him pat me through the fabric a few times, as if to reassure me everything was fine. Admittedly, it made the cramped space feel a little less claustrophobic.

I creaked softly on the way to the supermarket as the layers of folded plastic rubbed against each other. My body was compressed even further when he suddenly sat down, squashing me flat against what felt like a wooden park bench. The weight lifted after only a few seconds, making me think he’d just stopped to tie his shoe. Whatever the reason, the thud of heavy footsteps continued until we reached the store.

Some time later, Scott whipped me out of his pocket at the checkout and unfolded me. I started to get second thoughts the moment he lowered a sack of dog food inside my translucent walls. It settled against my bottom like a concrete slab, forming a flat platform for the rest of the items. Chunky cartons, blocky boxes, and all kinds of rigid packaging were promptly loaded into me, filling me right up to the brim.

He wrapped his fingers around my handles and slowly lifted me up, leaning closer to listen for any signs of protest. For a fleeting instant, I feared my bottom seam was about to burst, but thankfully, it turned out to be only readjusting under the immense weight. My handles strained and my skin sagged as I left the safety of the bagging area, but I remained resolute. When I saw my blurry reflection in the polished metal wall of the checkout counter, I looked more like a plastic cube than a bag.

“I can do this,” I told myself, my entire body stretched taut like an overinflated balloon. “I was made to do this!”

The automatic doors slid open to a downpour as we stepped out of the store. Drops of water pattered relentlessly against my tight skin all the way home, forming thin streaks that trickled down my shiny sides. It could have been relaxing, had the rain not turned my plastic freezing cold. At least the high tension kept me from shivering.

As soon as we were back, I was lifted onto the kitchen table and emptied of my contents. Scott was nowhere near as gentle as Sarah, but to his credit, he treated me with far more respect than he had this morning. When the last item was out, he smoothed me back into shape and flattened me against the table.

“You’re pretty tough for a twenty-cent grocery bag,” he chuckled, patting me dry with a paper towel. “I’d say you handled that load better than I did. Don’t ever call yourself a pushover again.”

“I won’t,” I squeaked. “Thanks.”

“So, what’s next? Is it back to hanging from the hook for you? Or would you rather join me on the couch for a movie?”

“I’d love to—join you, I mean.”

Turning around on his heels, Scott headed into the living room to set things up. Once the movie started playing, he returned to the kitchen to fetch me. He propped me up on the back of the couch, taking great care to align the logo on my surface towards the screen. Satisfied, he turned up the volume and leaned back.

About two hours later, the credits began to roll. Scott stretched his arms and picked up the remote, turning the television off. The room grew quiet again, leaving only the distant hum of the refrigerator over in the kitchen.

“What did you think?” he asked. “I thought the special effects looked great.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I replied meekly. “My back was facing the screen the whole time. The logo may be on both sides, but that doesn’t mean my face is.”

“Oh, man—I’m sorry,” he groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I tried to... but you probably didn’t hear me over all the gunfire and explosions. I’m used to it by now, so don’t worry about it. Better luck next time, I guess.”

Before I knew it, I was back on the kitchen table. Scott rummaged briefly through the drawers, then returned to me.

“Can you see me now?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?”

Without giving me a chance to protest, he pulled out a permanent marker and started to scribble something on my face. Although I couldn’t see what it was, I could feel the tip of the marker tracing a small smiley face onto my glossy surface. Then he flipped me over and inscribed his initials on my back.

“Just so I can tell you apart from the others,” Scott explained. “People at the gym sometimes use identical plastic bags to hold their clothes, and I’d hate to get you mixed up with someone else’s. I hope you won’t mind.”

In truth, I did mind, but I chose not to argue. There was a degree of wisdom in his decision to label me, even if I wasn’t thrilled about being claimed as his personal property. I had so far seen myself as Sarah’s bag and not his, so I couldn’t help but feel somewhat slighted. I just wished he had asked my permission before branding me like a horse.

After putting the pen away, he hung me back in my familiar place on the wall next to the oven mitts. As the lights flickered off, I was left alone in the dark kitchen with my newly drawn face staring blankly out of the window. Its permanent smile, however, didn’t quite reflect my current mood. Instead, it only reminded me that my body no longer truly belonged to me. I was just living in it.

I spent the long hours of the night pondering the strange reality I found myself in. The loss of my old life still grieved me, but as the first rays of sunlight warmed my polymer skin, I began to feel more hopeful. I had owners who looked at me and saw a person, not a piece of trash. I had a place where I belonged, a home that welcomed me the way I was. And the most important of all, I had a purpose. To the rest of the world, I might have been nothing more than a plastic shopping bag, but to Sarah and Scott, I was more than just an inanimate object.

10

Over the coming weeks, my life slowly started to settle into a predictable pattern.

On weekdays, I usually served as Scott’s laundry bag, keeping his sweaty clothes from stinking up his backpack. Despite the smelly nature of the job, I got used to his body odor after the first few trips. More significantly, carrying his clothes wouldn’t put much strain on me, so I didn’t have to worry about suddenly tearing. As an added bonus, he always gave me a quick wash in the sink after getting back home. All in all, I rarely had anything more than the smell to complain about.

Sarah, on the other hand, had a habit of taking me to the grocery store with her every Saturday. She sometimes used a second bag for the heaviest items to save me the trouble, but more often than not, I hauled the entire load back to her house all by myself. Carrying groceries made me swell with pride—I was a shopping bag, after all—and I no longer resented bearing the branding of the supermarket chain on my face. If anything, it made me feel like a professional on the job.

In addition to those two main jobs, I also helped out with smaller tasks every now and then. One time, she used me as a protective floor cover when potting houseplants, letting me catch the stray pieces of soil so she could just fold me up and shake the dirt into the bin afterwards. On a few occasions, I spent rainy afternoons cinched tight over her bicycle seat, shielding it against moisture. But most commonly, I was simply used for moving things from one place to another.

My life wasn’t all about work, either. I often fluttered merrily in Sarah’s hand as she was walking her dog, hanging loose and empty by her side. Scott would regularly place me next to him on the couch while watching television, sometimes even letting me decide what we should watch. Both of them had a word or two with me whenever they walked past, treating me almost like a family member. I never failed to chime in with a witty remark or a bit of encouragement, and they always seemed to listen.

The first real test of patience came when Sarah and Scott were about to go out on a holiday trip. I was going to have the house to myself for two whole weeks since they had deemed it too risky to take me with them abroad. To make my own holiday a little easier to endure, she had promised to hang me closer to the window to give me a better view than I had from my usual place on the kitchen wall.

Unfortunately, staring at a wall was exactly what I ended up doing. When the day finally came, I was left hanging on the drying rack in the bathroom, forgotten in the flurry of suitcases and last-minute checks. Those checks didn’t include me, however, so I had to spend the next thirteen days in the dark with only the hum of ventilation keeping me company.

During my time in isolation, I learned new things about myself. For one reason or another, neither boredom nor impatience seemed to affect me as strongly as they once had. At worst, I was just mildly annoyed that there was nothing there for me to do except hang upside down on the rack. Just like in the drawer, the stillness made time lose all its meaning, but for once, it worked in my favor—Sarah and Scott were back home before I even realized it, thinking they’d only been gone for a couple of days.

After their return, my life continued the same way as before. I carried heavy groceries, contained sweaty clothes, and made myself useful in any way I could. For someone as thin and fragile as me, such tasks provided more than enough excitement, even if they might have seemed mundane and boring to the outside world. They gave me a sense of purpose, and that was all that mattered.

11

Of course, my new life wasn’t all roses. Although I didn’t have to worry about things like paying bills or reading emails anymore, there was a whole new host of threats to watch out for. I might have been immune to disease, but I had no means of defending myself against UV rays. Every time I was out in the sun, I could feel it baking my translucent surface, bleaching my colors, and leaving me more brittle than before.

The sad truth was, I wouldn’t last forever. Even if I was thicker than average, I was slowly but surely breaking down. With every passing day, I could feel myself growing weaker—my handles stretched, my skin wrinkled, my colors dulled. There was no way for my body to heal itself, no way to repair the damage that had accumulated over the months of use. It was a permanent reminder that I would eventually fail.

On some quiet nights, my thoughts returned to my old life and all the people I’d never see again. They were still out there, and so was I, but the person they once knew might as well be considered dead. Although I sorely missed my family, I refused to go back to them—not because I still feared they wouldn’t accept me, but because I didn’t want to put them through the pain of losing me twice.

“Is something wrong?” Sarah asked me one evening. “You’ve been awfully quiet lately.”

“I’m scared,” I replied. “I’m breaking apart.”

“Aww, you poor thing,” she said, lifting me off the hook and pressing me against her warm chest. “Just remember that you’re not alone. Scott and I are going to do everything we can to make sure you last as long as possible.”

“Any day now, I’m going to rip open and spill my contents all over the floor—I just know it.”

“Well... even if you do, that doesn’t mean we have to throw you away.”

“What’s the point?” I asked gloomily. “I’ll be nothing more than a useless piece of trash by then. You might as well dispose of me with the rest of it.”

“There’s a better way,” Sarah murmured, hanging me back on the wall. “Look!”

She gently lifted my bottom edge, folding it over so I could see my reverse side. There, printed across my wrinkled skin, lay a little green recycling symbol and a few lines of text beside it. It read as follows:

“Did you know? I’m 100% recyclable! When you don’t need me anymore, please return me to a participating store drop-off location and keep the cycle going! I look forward to meeting you again one day!”

I didn’t know what to think. Up until now, I had assumed that bags like me weren’t even deemed worthy of being recycled. I thought we were fated to clog up sorting machines before getting ripped out of them by angry workers who would then send us off to sit in a landfill where we belonged. I confessed this to Sarah, who was quick to tell me how wrong I was.

“Times have changed,” she said brightly. “Everyone deserves a second chance—even you.”

On the surface, the idea of being recycled seemed absolutely amazing—once I inevitably ran out of usefulness, I’d have an opportunity to be reborn as something completely new. I would be given a new shape, a new identity, and a new purpose. But then again, objects don’t get to choose any of those things themselves. It was entirely possible that recycling could leave me worse off than I was before.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “What if I won’t survive the process? Or even if I do, what if I become something even worse? What if they make me into a bin liner and I end up being buried in the landfill anyway?”

“I suppose it could happen,” she admitted. “But there are so many other possible outcomes. Think about it—you could become something cherished and long-lasting, like a kid’s favorite action figure that they take with them everywhere they go. Or a durable piece of kitchenware that serves faithfully at every family dinner year after year. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Sure... but the odds aren’t in my favor. I can already imagine my hopes getting crushed when I roll off the production line as a sleek black garbage bag. Or a film on a frozen meal that is thrown away the second it’s ripped off. Or a piece of bubble wrap someone keeps popping until there’s not a single bubble left. That’s what likely awaits me if I’m recycled.”

Sarah frowned, unable to find any more words to cheer me up. She stood still for a moment, looking at me hanging sadly against the wall, as silence filled the space between us.

“I’m sure you’ll last a long time,” she said at last. “You’ll have plenty of time to think about it. Good night.”

Just as she was about to leave the kitchen, I gave a dry rustle to draw her attention. Stopping in the doorway, she glanced back at me, then walked closer.

“Perhaps I should leave the choice up to you,” I said quietly. “You and Scott have treated me better than I could ever hope for, and I trust that you know what’s best for me. If you want to recycle me when I’m no longer useful, I will understand. That way, I won’t have to blame myself if things go horribly wrong. Call me a coward if you must, but I just can’t bring myself to make that decision.”

“You’re not a coward,” Sarah murmured. “Everything that happens to you is always the result of someone else’s actions. You couldn’t drop yourself into a recycling bin even if you wanted to, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. Anyone would be scared in a situation like yours. But I know you’ll be able to face whatever comes, because you’re the bravest little bag there is.”

“I am?”

“Absolutely,” she said softly, pinching my corners. “No matter where you eventually end up, I have no doubt you’ll manage. You’ll adapt. And you’ll learn to be happy again.”

Her kind words made something shift inside my polymers. She was right—I had already survived the leap from human to shopping bag, so compared to that, going from a shopping bag to something else suddenly felt like a minor adjustment. I had adapted to heavy groceries. I had adapted to sweaty clothes. If I could adapt to those, I could adapt to anything—maybe even being a garbage bag, or being buried in the landfill for all eternity.

Sarah leaned closer and gave me a little kiss on the smiley face Scott had drawn on my surface. She adjusted my posture a bit as if to tuck me in for the night, then turned around and left. The kitchen went dark, and the house fell silent.

The night was peaceful. I stared out of the window as usual, watching the streetlights flickering outside. My future was still uncertain, but it no longer filled me with dread. For the first time since my transformation, I truly believed that everything was going to be all right.

12

As months kept passing by and my confidence grew, I eventually started seeking out greater challenges. One such opportunity presented itself when Sarah was walking the dog and suddenly realized she’d forgotten a waste bag. Luckily for her, I happened to be hanging from her hand, crisp and clean. I hesitated for a moment, but then steeled myself and volunteered to be used as a poop bag just this once.

She protested, of course, but the German Shepherd had once saved me from being blown away by the wind, and I felt I owed it my life. If the only way for a humble plastic bag like myself to return the favor was to clean up after it, then that’s exactly what I would do. I didn’t expect her to ever understand how much this meant to me. It took some persuasion, but in the end, she relented.

It was not a pleasant task, but I bore it without complaint. Sarah was somewhat tentative in her movements, but before I knew it, I had become a tidy little package of canine waste dangling from her hand. She twisted me into a tight knot to stifle the scent, but she stopped short of tossing me into the bin. To be honest, a part of me assumed she would.

Sarah didn’t speak to me for the remainder of the walk, and I couldn’t really blame her. She was understandably upset about the chore awaiting her back home, but once we arrived, she just dropped me on the porch and left me there instead. The afternoon sun warmed me up, slowly stewing me in my own juices until the revolting stench inside me was almost unbearable. She probably wanted to ensure I’d never aspire to be a poop bag again.

Once the sun had set, the front door finally cracked open. A hand reached down and retrieved the stink bomb that I’d become, carrying me inside the house. As I looked up at the woman who was holding me, I saw that the fire in her eyes had seemingly died down. She frowned, her expression softening until she was almost on the verge of tears.

“I shouldn’t have left you out there,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “You were just trying to do something nice, and I... I acted like a child. I can’t even begin to imagine how awful you must feel. I’m sorry... Can you forgive me?”

“I’ll forgive you,” I replied without a hint of hesitation. “You might want to hold your breath when you open me, though. The smell has gotten pretty strong by now.”

In the bathroom, she untied the knot and peeled me back, dislodging my contents into the toilet. The next thing I knew, I was stuffed into the dark mouth of the washing machine. I spent almost three hours tumbling around in scalding water, but that was the price I had to pay if I ever wanted to be used again. The heat numbed me, leaving me feeling dazedly relaxed when she finally hung me up to dry for the night.

By the time morning came, I was as dry as a bone. Sarah unclipped me from the drying rack and ran her fingers along my wrinkled surface as if to make sure all traces of yesterday’s ordeal had been erased. Satisfied, she held me up to her nose and sniffed me a few times.

“How do you like my new detergent?” she asked. “I hope you don’t mind smelling like lavender.”

“It’s certainly easier to endure than the scent I had yesterday,” I quipped. “Even if it doesn’t carry quite the same punch.”

Sarah laughed as she walked into the living room. Golden streaks filtered through the curtains, bathing the room in sunlight. She sat down on the couch and draped me across her lap, where I basked in the warmth of her touch and the morning light.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” she began, “but aren’t you ashamed? I’m not saying you should, but... you know... doesn’t it hurt your feelings to be reduced to a bag of dog poop?”

“A little,” I admitted, “but that’s just the reality I find myself in. There aren’t all that many things I’m capable of doing, so I wanted to try something new—and to pay my debt to my four-legged savior. You wouldn’t understand... you don’t know what it feels like to be like this.”

“What does it feel like, anyway?”

“It feels... normal.”

I was somewhat surprised that had been the first word to come to my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more accurate it started to sound. I no longer remembered what being human had felt like—what walking around or using my hands had felt like. It seemed as though I’d never even had those things to begin with.

What I had now was two carry handles and a large cavity for holding groceries. I had glossy white skin that was thin enough to see through. And on my front and back, I bore the vibrant logo of the largest supermarket chain in the country—my face, as it were. That, I suddenly understood, was my normal.

“I don’t really know how else to describe it,” I continued. “I mean... I still have my old memories, but they now feel like dreams that never actually happened—not to me, at least. Maybe the old me died when he disappeared into that machine, and was reincarnated as a shopping bag. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what it feels like.”

“Sounds like you’ve learned to accept yourself the way you are.”

“I guess so,” I rustled quietly. “My new life may be simple and predictable, but I’ve grown to enjoy it over the last few months. It’s not the life I asked for, but it’s the one I was given, and I’m happy to have it. I feel so strange saying this, but... I like being a plastic bag. It’s who I am.”

“You’re by far the best bag I’ve ever had,” she said. “Definitely worth every cent!”

“High value at low cost—that’s me!”

Sarah smiled, brushing her hand across the slogan printed on my surface. She got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen, flattening me on the counter to begin folding.

“Wait—there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“If you think I’m going to let you clean up after the dog again,” she laughed, “you can forget that!”

“That’s not what I was going to ask,” I chuckled awkwardly. “No, it’s... it’s about my family.”

“Do you want me to take you back to them?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I’d like you to write a letter to them. I’d do it myself, but I can’t exactly hold a pen. Will you be my scribe?”

“I’d be glad to do that,” she replied. “Are you going to tell them the truth about yourself?”

“To some extent, yes—but not everything. I just want to give them a sense of closure, to ease their pain of losing me. I owe them at least that much. I want them to know that I’m still out there and that I love them, even if they will never see me again.”

And so, Sarah drafted the anonymous letter exactly as I instructed. The instant she dropped the envelope into the mailbox, I felt as if a weight had been lifted off my handles. I had finally left my past behind, ready to embrace the future in full and face whatever it had in store. I might have been nothing more than a cheap, disposable grocery bag made out of plastic, but in that moment, it was all I ever wanted to be.

13

Seasons changed almost without noticing. I hung in my usual place on the kitchen wall, entirely detached from the calendar. Outside the window, the humid afternoons of late summer quietly gave way to rainy autumn mornings, and eventually, the trees stood completely bare against the gray sky of early winter.

Once snow covered the earth and the temperature dipped below freezing, I decided to stop going outside altogether. Sarah and Scott respected my choice without question, understanding that the cold winter air would make me more fragile. I was content to simply watch the blizzards from my safe spot on the wall, quietly dreaming of the day it would be safe for me to carry groceries again.

As months passed, I slowly started to become more taciturn. It wasn’t uncommon for me to go several days without saying a word—sometimes even a full week. In my simple, repetitive life, there just wasn’t all that much to talk about anymore. But my owners were always there for me if I needed comfort.

The truth was, I didn’t pay much attention to the passage of time anymore. Without any long-term goals or ambitions, the only thing left to look forward to was the next grocery run—a little burst of anticipation that never seemed to fade. I lived in the present, taking one day at a time.

One misty morning, Sarah broke the routine by doing something completely unexpected—she took me in her hands, looked down at me with a wide grin, and said:

“Happy birthday!”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, completely clueless. “My birthday is nowhere near this time of year.”

“Well, it is for the new you,” she said with a smile. “I picked you up at the supermarket exactly a year ago today, which means you’ve just turned one in bag years.”

“Oh... I suppose I should enjoy it while it lasts, then,” I rustled dejectedly. “Not like I’ll ever see a second one. It’s a small miracle I’m still in one piece.”

Sarah’s smile softened, replacing her playful cheer with a quiet certainty. She ran her hand across me, smoothing me flat against the table.

“You will,” she murmured. “It might not be with us, and you might not be a bag anymore, but the day will come. I can promise you that.”

“Thank you... I don’t know what I’d do without you and Scott.”

“I do—you’d be carrying groceries for somebody else, and you’d be just as happy doing it,” she said, taking out a tiny golden sticker shaped like a star and pressing it onto my surface. “Now, cheer up—this is your special day, after all.”

“Will there be cake?”

“I can go and get one, if you want,” Sarah giggled. “Although, I’m not entirely sure how you’d manage to eat it.”

“I guess I’ll have to settle on carrying it home from the store,” I chuckled. “It’ll be inside me for a little while, at least. Even if I can only taste the cardboard box it comes in.”

With that, we set off toward the store. A powerful gust made my empty walls flap wildly in her hand, but I didn’t care. I no longer got dizzy. I no longer struggled with wind. I no longer experienced the world as something hostile. I was just a plastic bag fluttering in the breeze.

My load was light on the way back—only the cake and nothing else. Back home, Sarah placed a single lit candle on it and asked me to make a wish. As soon as I had, Scott folded me into a makeshift fan and used my flat body to blow out the candle. If I was still capable of crying tears of joy, that was the moment I would have done so.

I watched with glee as Sarah and Scott enjoyed my birthday cake, even if I couldn’t partake myself. But then again, I had long since forgotten what food tasted like, so I didn’t really feel like I was missing out. The pleasures of my simple life consisted mostly of physical sensations—like the sudden rush of air whenever I was snapped wide open at a checkout, or the reassuring pressure of being folded into a neat, orderly square. I didn’t need food to feel full—groceries were more than enough.

To my surprise, Sarah had prepared a present for me. She draped me over the ironing board, set the heat to the lowest setting, and proceeded to iron the wrinkles out of my skin. A soothing warmth radiated through my thin body, flattening my rumpled edges. The experience was truly heavenly, and by the time she was done, I was a perfectly smooth plastic sheet without a single crease tainting my surface. I looked like a brand new bag—felt like one, too.

In the days that followed, my life settled back into its comfortable, predictable rhythm. It had its ups and downs, measured not by human drama but by the simple utility of my existence. There were heavy hauls where I felt the proud strain of holding a week’s worth of supplies, followed by quiet afternoons of hanging empty on the wall. During that brief, fleeting period, I believed my happiness would last forever.

Unfortunately, only a few weeks after my birthday, I suffered my first tear when the sharp corner of a box pierced my side. Scott patched the puncture with a strip of tape to make sure it wouldn’t spread, but that didn’t make me much happier. The foreign material felt intrusive, and it took me a long time to get used to it. Whether I liked it or not, this was only the beginning of my slow, inevitable decline.

14

Six months later, I still carried on. But only barely.

The sun had bleached my skin until the logo on my face was almost invisible, leaving me looking like a plain white bag at first glance. My surface was a map of deep wrinkles and my handles had been stretched thin, though my body remained otherwise relatively intact. The slick, glossy plastic I’d once been so proud of had turned rough and dim, having lost all its promotional luster. Even if it hadn’t, the branding was woefully outdated by now.

There was no point trying to deny it—I was growing old. My product life cycle was nearing its end, and I could feel it all over my body. In terms of deterioration, my one and a half bag years felt equivalent to something like eighty or ninety human years. I was a mere shadow of my former self, a thin white husk that glided through the air like a ghost.

It had been ages since I’d carried anything more substantial than Scott’s gym gear. Sarah still loaded me up with lighter items at the checkout to make me think I was helping, but newer, stronger bags handled the vast majority of her grocery hauling these days. Sometimes she even tossed me into another bag, hurting my pride more than she probably realized.

One sunny afternoon, Sarah and I were on our way to the supermarket for our usual Saturday grocery run. After walking through the automatic sliding doors, she made a small detour past the row of bins at the sorting station, dropping her used tissue into one of the openings. Then, without saying a word, she hastily folded me up and flicked me through the narrow slot next to it.

It took me a moment to process what had just happened. One moment I had been swinging lazily in her hand, eagerly waiting for an opportunity to prove I still had what it takes, and the next, I found myself landing softly on a pile of discarded bags. At first, I thought she had mistaken me for one of the regular bags she often used in my stead. But as the hours stretched on, the truth became inescapable—she wasn’t coming back.

Sarah had made the final decision without me, but I didn’t hold it against her. Maybe she had noticed a fault forming in me that I wasn’t aware of, concluding that it was time for me to retire. Maybe she assumed I would have second thoughts—that I’d start begging her not to throw me away. Maybe she wanted to spare me the humiliation of ripping open and spilling my contents. Maybe she just wanted to avoid getting sentimental. Maybe it had been all those things. I would never know for sure.

A pang of sorrow overcame me as I realized I’d never see her again, but the sadness soon faded into the soothing rustle of the recycling bin. Once more, I was surrounded by my own kind—just like the day I first woke up in this synthetic body. Hundreds of crumpled bags rested peacefully around me, each having given what little it could to the world. Some had contributed more, some less, but in here, we were all equals.

Still, I wished I’d had a chance to say goodbye—to thank Sarah and Scott for everything they had done for me. But somewhere deep inside, I believed they already knew how grateful I was. I never expected anyone to show such kindness to a simple plastic bag, yet they had done just that. Despite my humble appearance, they had managed to make me feel like a real person.

“Goodbye,” I whispered into the void. “Thanks for everything.”

I had no idea what the recycling process would entail, or if I would even exist on the other side. Even if my essence somehow survived the melting and the molding, there was no guarantee I would retain my voice. Without it, I’d go from being a person to just being plastic. But I wasn’t afraid of staying silent forever. In fact, a part of me believed things might be better that way.

As I sank into the sea of crinkling plastic, I felt right at home. The existence of a dedicated collection bin for someone like me meant everything. It meant that not everyone saw me as a worthless piece of trash. I could be raw material—pure potential to become something greater. What that something turned out to be, only time would tell.

I wasn’t given much time to settle into my foster home, as the container was emptied the very next day. We were hoisted upward and suddenly released, fluttering like snowflakes into the dark belly of the garbage truck. The hatch sealed shut with a metallic screech, and the compactor took us into its crushing embrace. A series of small pops filled the space as seams began to burst, including mine. I let out a mournful whine as the last of my air was squeezed out, leaving me entirely deflated.

Though the compression was brutal, the immense pressure brought with it a strange sense of comfort—I felt completely safe, even cared for. I had ceased to be a functioning shopping bag and was now a part of something bigger. As the forces kept increasing, the boundaries of my body began to blur, and I slowly became one with the massive heap of plastic I was encased in. By the time my feeble body was fed into a shredder at the recycling facility, I could no longer feel a thing.

And just like that, I was gone.

THE END