Plastic Bag

For two years, almost as long as I've been writing my novel, the plastic grocery bag waved at me from the top branches of the maple. My writing desk is upstairs at treetop level in what used to be my son's room. From there I can see the steep sidewalk that carries children home from the elementary school just out of view. An endless parade of dogs goes prancing, pulling, plodding up the hill, their owners behind them clutching leashes. Owners who want to demonstrate the complete control of mind over dog dispense with the leash altogether.

 I hated that bag from the moment I saw it and tried to figure out a way to get it down. But the maple had grown in the nineteen years we've lived here, outgrown any ladder we had. The roof looked tantalizingly close, but that was an illusion. In the summer, the bag mingled with the foliage, barely visible, but I knew just where to look. In the winter, it flew triumphantly, a survivor. Storms blew, but its grasp was stronger, twined around the tree's outstretched fingers.

Toward the end, it was in tatters, no longer recognizable. And finally, one day when I sat down to write, it was gone. I marked the day in my calendar as if it were a holiday. Then I looked at the oak tree, where a new bag hung on a branch.