By Matt Spaetzel
They filed down Main Street, stone-faced, pitiful, dragging their loads resolutely behind them.
“Who are they?” I asked someone.
“Carriers,” he said. “Odd bunch. Anything that hurt them goes in those packs.”
“Anything?”
“Look for yourself.”
Their packs overflowed with knives and glass shards, snakes, and cigarette packs.
Pins.
Needles.
Books stacked several rows deep.
A whole stove top.
Guns beyond counting.
“They carry all that weight their entire lives. Weird, right?”
I thought of the photo inside my wallet: her smile and wisps of loose hair around her temples.
“No,” I replied, slowly. “I don’t think it’s weird at all.”
Clever! And intriguing – and then the last line delivers that punch. Great story and heavy with emotion, even though so little is said.
Tight and effective micro-fiction. Succinctly captures a universal truth.
Well done Matt, you’ve explained gray, love, hate and invisible in less than 101 words.
Nice. Thank you.
Stunning!