Plastic Shopping Bag Attack

This submission from Clifton Cloud describes a damp, summertime encounter…

I was in midtown in the mid 1980’s and it was balmy summer time, just hot enough that if you were wearing a suit, you had limited time to make it to the next air conditioned building.

I was the king of the AC cold cuts and knew what lobbies you could cut through without getting noticed. The ATT building, IBM, Blackrock building and some of the banks on 6th Ave. There was of course the paradise of Bloomingdales perfume floor where you could see some of the most beautiful girls dressed to the nines spraying perfume in the aisle ways and time would stand still. When your shirt got cool and a bit crusty, it was time to go, any longer and you may not be able to function outside again.

It had rained that morning and while temporarily cooling, the puddles soon oozed with oils of every kind imaginable and they would send up begging fingers of steam trying to draw in anything to join their mysterious stew.

As I walked down the sidewalk I saw a man with a wrestler’s build wearing a too tight suit walking towards me about 30 feet away. He was carrying two heavily packed briefcases and was obviously in a hurry to catch a train home and maybe even have time to get a cold beer first.

A brownish plastic bag gently fell from the sky as if dying from the heat. The bag briefly taunted the man and then gently reposed in a filthy puddle at the curb. We both saw it and were both relieved that we were safe.

Just then, a wind came out of nowhere and picked up the bag and sent it right towards the man’s face. He bobbed. He weaved. He ducked while bag fiercely made for his face until finally in spite of all his fear and athleticism, his face was smothered. He dropped his bags and pealed the bag from his face, his eyebrows wet with brown water, a pigeon feather sticking to his right cheek.

He saw the look of shock in my face and said, “I guess I had no chance.” I nodded in approval.

image by Zoran Borojevic