short fiction · 2026-10-27

The 1998 Grocery Bags

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The 1998 grocery bags still lingered in the hallway air — plastic and paper, the ghost of apples and detergent, the particular dust of a year that refused to leave. They hung from the coat rack's lower hooks, handles stretched thin by the weight of cans no one remembered buying. My mother said they were for emergencies. My father said they were for nothing. Neither threw them out.

When I came home at twenty-three, the bags were still there. The apples had long since rotted into the carpet's dark stain. The detergent had leaked, a blue vein running toward the baseboard. I counted twelve bags. Six plastic, six paper. The paper ones held their shape better, stiff as dried skin. The plastic ones clung to each other, static and patient.

I took one down. Inside: a can of peaches, expired 1999. A box of matches, striker worn smooth. A receipt from the A&P on Main, faded to illegible white. The ink had surrendered to time. I put it back. I put them all back.

The hallway still smells like 1998 when the heat kicks on. Some preservations are not choices. Some weights are not meant to be lifted.