The Things They Carried

Inspired by Tim O’Brien’s They Things They Carried

The things they carried were assigned to them at birth. The things they carried were different, but the same. Some carried sketchbooks, some carried sports equipment, some carried words they never said aloud. Yet the reason they carried them—that was universal. Through their meticulously programmed lives—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday again—they lived driven by purpose. They endured the cycle, suffered it, obeyed it. Still, joy rose up now and then, brief and fleeting, enough to keep them barely afloat. Most of the time they moved underwater, lungs filling, arms heavy. Now and then, they surfaced for air. Such is life. 

Through every purpose-driven action they carried the burden of purpose itself. Even when the purpose was unclear, even when it felt imagined, they carried it anyway. They carried the fantasy that it was there—that somewhere above the water there was air, that life was not only a carnival of suffocation. 

Some carried the question of why. Why carry at all? Others rejected the burden altogether. They carried nothing. And to the rest it seemed that carrying nothing was a kind of freedom. They floated. They drifted. They breathed easily. 

But what is the point of floating if nothing ever drags you under? What is the worth of breath if you never fight for air? To carry life is to carry burden.