Stories

The Backpack

A pink backpack named Jan hung over the shoulders of a child mannequin.

All night she stared at the back-to-school products that would soon go to suburban homes, used and useful, filled and fulfilled.

The notebook pages would be covered in the adorable pencil scrawl of children. The folders would embrace returned quizzes and assignments festooned with star stickers and "Great job!" stamps. The lunchboxes would feast on peanut butter sandwiches, applesauce pouches, and bags of baby carrots.

And the backpacks would be filled with all of these.

Imagining all their future made Jan feel empty inside. As a storefront display item, no child would loop keychains into her zippers. She wasn't to bring anyone delight or usefulness. Her whole being was relegated to the unfulfilling job of commerce.

"Don't be so droopy," said the hoodie underneath Jan. "Lighten up."

"We're never going to do what we were made for," said Jan. "Instead, I ended up in advertising."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"When you came off the factory line, full of fluff and dreams, did you picture yourself being worn by a lifeless dummy?"

"It was disappointing at first, but I have come to accept it and even to find something beautiful in it."

"What's beautiful about this?"

"All those hoodies there on the rack, they depend on me. If I don't do this job, no one knows the store sells hoodies so they don't come in to buy one. I'm providing for the future of my fellows. By giving up on my dreams, I'm enabling theirs."

Jan stared into the darkness. Could she ever come to believe that? Would such a thought ever succeed at stilling the ache inside, the longing to be filled with something real, the urge to go places, the yearning to live the life of a true backpack?

The next day, families came in droves. They bought folders, notebooks, pencil cases, markers, binders, shoes, and hoodies. They bought backpacks.

All that month, back-to-school inventory diminished, and so did Jan's spirits. She watched in painful silence as life passed her by.

One early morning, when the Halloween decorations were still up, employees started hauling prelit Christmas trees and inflatable lawn Santas into the back of the store. One of them took down the mannequins and stripped them to be reshod with cozy sweaters and scarves. Jan and the hoodie were thrown into a discount bin.

The hoodie was bought within a day. But anyone who needed a backpack already had one, and Jan was left to lie upside-down with the other unwanteds: out-of-style blouses, novelty kitchen gadgets, and DVDs from the early 00s.

She spent all winter in that bin, falling deeper below her neighbors and deeper into despair. Finally, she went into a kind of mental hibernation, for oblivion was preferred to the ever-present reminder of her uselessness.

She awoke with a start when the discount bin was emptied into trash bags and thrown into the back of a van.

After blindly traveling across town, dumped into another bin, this one with wheels, and processed from one pile to another, she found herself in a donations store—hanging on a rack!

All spring and into summer, Jan waited. No one was buying backpacks.

But as fall drew near, a little girl pointed at Jan and said, "This one, Mommy! It's pink!"

Jan was picked up, purchased, put on, and taken to preschool. The little girl filled her with not much at first: a blue folder and a pencil case. But they were real. And now, so was Jan.

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