Bag of bags
It started about three years ago. We’d just moved house. While we were unpacking boxes, we realised that we had no milk or tea bags. So we sent our Roy down the corner shop to get some, and a packet of chocky bikkies. We had been gagging for a cuppa all day during the move.
That’s when it began. I thought nothing of it at first. I emptied the tea bags, milk and bikkies and left the plastic bag on the kitchen surface. It stayed there a day or two, being moved up and down the surface between cups of tea and sandwiches. Then, without thinking, I scrunched it up and put it in the kitchen drawer. ‘You never know,’ I thought, ‘when it will come in handy.’
A week later we went to do the big shopping at Tesco. When we arrived home, all the shopping was put on the kitchen surface. After it was put away, I gathered up all the plastic bags and remembered the one in the drawer. I bunched them together into the one plastic bag and put them away, not giving them a second thought.
That carried on for about a month. Each time the contents of the bag grew bigger and bigger. It got to the point that when I opened the drawer they would jump out and drop all over the floor. Again I scrunched the weekly shopping bags all together and attempted to stuff them back in the drawer, but they wouldn’t fit. They kept fighting, springing back out.
Defeated, I opted to put the bag of bags in the airing cupboard, just above the towels, still thinking, ‘You never know.’ Why couldn’t I just throw them away? Because I knew that as soon as I did, I would need a plastic bag. And so the ritual of feeding the bag of bags went on. Sometimes, if I opened the airing cupboard quietly, I’d catch it sleeping, and I was able to put my weekly bags away without a fuss. But more often than not it would jump out at me. Slowly at first the bag of bags would roll, and then all of a sudden bags would spring out – dozens upon dozens that I had stuffed into that one original bag. Sometimes I swore I heard it laughing at me as I slammed the door shut.
One day at a clothes shop I was given a big strong fancy bag, one with string handles. Straight away the idea of using this bag for my bag of bags occurred to me. The contents of the new bag were incidental when I got home. I just emptied the new, pressed suit onto the settee and ran to the airing cupboard. With a face full of sweet revenge, I stuffed the bag of bags into the new stronger sturdier string-topped bag. There! The deed was done. Life would be easier again from now on.
It was Christmas. I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking straight. It seemed the logical thing to do to shove all the Christmas shopping bags into the one bag with the bag of bags. Why didn’t I end it all then and throw them in the bin, along with the Christmas dinner leftovers? On Boxing Day morning I opened the kitchen drawer and found a small selection of Christmas wrapping paper that I had saved because it was pretty and shiny, and because I was drunk. With no further thought I rammed the paper into the bin. Again I swore I heard laughing coming from behind the closed airing cupboard door
The collection of bags continued. It was my secret. No-one knew my private hell. When shopping at a DIY store, I was given a large shoulder bag made from thin plastic mesh. This was it. Finally, a bag to put my bag of bags of bags in. It worked for a week or so, but who was I kidding? They all still jumped out at me everywhere. This was now out of control. I even moved the towels to the bathroom. The big bag of bags seemed to snarl as I fed it more bags each week.
Occasionally I justified this collection of bags to my family by actually using one to put rubbish in from the front garden. ‘See,’ I told them. ‘I told you, you never know.’ Of course, my obsession went over their heads as they carried on as normal.
The sleepless nights were the last straw. As I lay in bed, the central heating would click on. As the heat increased gradually, I could hear the rustle of the bags expanding. I even imagined they had crept up the stairs in the night and were waiting outside the bedroom door to grab me and stuff me as tightly as they could into them. This particular night I’d had enough. I put my dressing gown on, grabbed the bin bags and shoved them into the garage. Still I couldn’t throw them away; after all, you never know.
That was two years ago. I was happy again. Then we decided to clear the garage to make room for the new car. The lawn mower went; an old battery; tins of paint, half-used (they’re always half-used). Old picture frames, books, a burst hose pipe, a barbecue set; a cuddly toy. And then I saw our Roy grab the bin bag. My heart jumped. I found myself running and shouting, in slow motion, to Roy: ‘NOOOOO!’
Too late. He’d thrown the bin bag out onto the drive. The bin bag gave birth to thousands of plastic bags. They flew and blew everywhere. Mrs. Williams next door was pegging her washing out, and she shouted, ‘Coo-ee! There’s all bags on your drive!’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ I smiled back, doing the polite neighbour thing. After an hour the bags were collected and back in the bin bag. It was time I ended this once and for all. I started it; I would end it.
‘Just leave it for the bin men, or take them back to Tesco to be recycled,’ Roy suggested.
He didn’t understand. This wasn’t just a bag full of bags. It was a monster I had created, and now I had to get rid of it. I couldn’t let the bin men see it, or have people see me disposing of thousands of bags. They’d think I was a weirdo. It was my dirty little secret.
I picked a night to execute my plan of disposal. It had to be raining – fewer people out and about. Around midnight I put the bin bag into the boot of the car. It didn’t matter where I went as long as it was far enough away. I headed north and joined the M6.
Just after the exit to Blackpool there was a lay-by. I noticed that it already had discarded rubbish scattered along its length. I got my bin bag and knotted it firmly. It seemed to struggle as a sudden gust of wind blew down the lay-by. I put the bag on the embankment, along with the old newspapers, toffee wrappers and crisp packets, and the obligatory rain-soaked single shoe and lonely glove. I walked away. I didn’t look back. I got in the car and headed home.
Driving back it seemed as if plastic bags were everywhere. On a perimeter fence with barbed wire, an old torn dishevelled Tesco bag flapped and blew. A mile later the wind picked up and a plastic bag blew onto my windscreen. I braked. I couldn’t see a thing. The car skidded down the embankment and into a shallow river. The last thing I remember was the air bag hitting my face, and then it all went black.
I woke in hospital. My blurred vision came into focus on a plastic bag with saline solution drip-feeding into my arm. Our Roy was by my bed. He said I’d been out for two days. A few days later, the doctor gave me the all clear to go home. ‘Just cuts and bruises. You’ll live,’ he said. That afternoon the nurse came into the ward carrying my possessions – clothes, wallet, shoes, coat, glasses. Most of them were still blood-stained, so I had to remain in my pyjamas.
The nurse handed me my belongings. I had nothing to put them in, not even a plastic bag. As I said to Roy, ‘You never know…’
Don A
Filed under: Fiction
