Bag on a Fence
©2004 Elizabeth L. Clark

It appeared out of nowhere. A black garbage bag. It attached itself to a fence that I passed everyday on my way to a job I hated and then back again to a life I hated even more.

It fluttered there, waving at me day after day. It seemed to represent all the things I felt. Discarded, useless, ugly and misbegotten.

It could have been doing what it was designed for, but instead it hung there, fluttering in the breeze, alone and without purpose.

    I felt like that, useless, without purpose. I passed it day after day, on a never ending race with life that I was in no way winning.

      It all came to a head when I came home and she started in on me again, yelling at me that it was -her- day off and -I- should have had her laundry done, her meals ready and as punishment she was going for a butches night out and I had better have that house clean when she got back.

  As soon as she was gone I packed everything I owned, clothes, computer, television etc into my SUV and then I called the gas company, electric company, phone company and the ISP we used and told them all to cancel service.

   I then called the land lady and informed her I was leaving and that the rent was paid and to take my name from the lease. I grabbed my cat and into the SUV we went. I sped off, feeling like the universe had just been lifted from my shoulders.

I passed the fence and the bag was gone. Maybe, like me it had decided to move on, that just being wasn't enough. I smiled and drove on, on into an unknown that felt so much better than the life I had left behind.