In September of 2018, a rumor began to spread. “Did you hear?” They would ask me, “I guess everyone is getting their bags checked tomorrow.” All my social medias were buzzing with people declaring that the school was going to be rooting through the belongings of the entire student body that Monday. “Leave everything at home tomorrow, they’re searching,” the Snapchat stories whispered. “I’ve never brought anything bad to school, this is an invasion of my privacy!” cried the Instagram posts. “How insane is this?” asked the tweets. The whole of Bedford seemed to be losing it. 

As with any rumor, there was at least an ounce of truth to the whole thing. The dreaded bag searches would be taking place the Monday after the Homecoming dance. On the night of said dance, two Freshman girls were found in a bathroom strung out on drugs. I can’t say I know which. They were searching specifically the people that they had suspected of carrying something in the first place and they were doing it discreetly between classes. Of course, the minute word of this got out, the massive game of Telephone began and the entire thing was blown out of proportion. When the information finally reached me, the whole school had decided that we were going to go back to school to find some kind of strange, dystopian nightmare scenario. Of course, me being myself, I decided that if I was going to have my time wasted being patted down for drugs that I don’t have, I was going to waste their time right back.

I packed the rubbery, chicken-shaped bag chock full of nonsensical clutter. A dirty spoon covered in hardened chunks of old peanut butter, a deck of cards with frayed corners, a tiny drawing of a spider on a wrinkled tearing of college ruled notebook paper, a stuffed doll of Pennywise the clown from Stephen King’s It. By the time I finished inflating the bag with slapdash garbage, it seemed heavy enough to be used as a wrecking ball. My fingers clasped around the scarlet, rope-like handles of the strange poultry purse as I carried it into the building, snickering to myself at the hilarious jape I was pulling on the staff. I was sure to get some stink-eye for this one.

Deep in the bowels of artificially lit hallways, the light reflecting from almost surgical tile floors into my eyes, I walk hurriedly. The click of my Vans against the linoleum is drowned out by the voices all around me, complaints about teachers, whispers about other students, cruel jokes at others’ expense, they all echo down the corridor, rebounding off the walls and blending together into one constant hum of noise. The chicken hangs from my wrist as I scurry on to my next hour, its miscellaneous contents cracking and thumping inside. As I walk, I make the mistake of allowing my eyes to drift to the other lane of the hallway where I make eye contact with him.

I’d never seen him before. He stood maybe 5’7”, short black hair that was cut tragically uneven sprouting from his head. Although I didn’t know this boy, the minute that we made eye contact in that hallway, his face inflated with cruel excitement and recognition. His lips curled into a sickening grin before he loaded the ammunition: a wicked dart, narrow tip dripping with a putrid, green toxin. As he spoke, the slur flew through the hall, visible only to me. My eyes widened in shock as the projectile pierced my flesh and filled my veins with burning venom. His laughter taunted me as my skin itches from the poison of his words. I told myself it didn’t matter as he walked away from me. Who cares what he thinks? He’s just some kid in the hallway. As I paced onward, however, I couldn’t shake it. It was only one word, but I felt it striking my vitals and slowing my heart beat. My fist curled around the rope-like handles of the bag, though, and I began to breathe again. Like a box of Band-Aids, the bag patched up the hole that the dart left. It was an obnoxious, rubbery reminder that it genuinely does not matter what any various passerbys have to say about me. I’m just as silly and loud as this bag suggests and I refuse to change that, to make myself more palatable so that others won’t press on me. I carry the chicken purse, but above all else I carry my unadulterated self and I will not apologize for that.