The Fabrication – A Curse in Disguise

1 year ago
Today was a special day. Not for her, but for her son. It was her son’s tenth birthday. She had been extremely fidgety the whole day and she couldn’t wait for her work shift to end.  The moment the clock hit six, she turned off her laptop and grabbed her bags. As she ran down the stairway, a sudden pain hit her. It was like a powerful force was stinging her. She knew exactly what was happening. The disease. She sat down on the stairs and took deep breaths. She continuously rubbed at the urticating spot. The pain did not stop. It was in her chest. She began to panic and yelled for help. Nobody came. After massaging her chest and crying out for some moments, she tried to get up. Gripping the handrail of the stairway, she heaved her legs up. She began to feel weak and the excruciating feeling would not go away. It was hopeless.  She considered the elevator but she remembered something: her son’s present. The thought of her son made her twitch in irritation. She had to hurry – there was not enough time. Not enough time. She used all her strength to run up the stairs and back to her office room. The backpack that she had bought for her son was sitting on her desk. The backpack would signify all of the hardship that her son had brought her. It would be one last jab at her excuse of a son.  A cold sweat emerged at the top of her forehead as she grabbed a pen on her desk and began writing on a small slip of paper. The pain began to worsen. There was not much time left.

Dear Stuart, you are the worst thing to ever happen to me. Why did you have to be a boy? Every year for my birthday I wished for a sweet daughter. Instead, I got you. You! You are a disgrace, a lost cause, a pest. If you had been a girl my life could have been saved. I could be healthier and recovered by now. If you had been a girl I would not have lost hope in myself. You are a cursed child and I can finally leave you. Besides that, I hope you live the rest of your life happily and become the person you want to be! Love, Mom.

She continued for a few more minutes, and when she finished writing, she placed the note in one of the concealed pockets of the backpack. Then, she taped the “Happy Birthday” card that she had bought days before on the top of the bag. It was done. She closed her eyes and sat down on the leather office chair. It felt good to finally be free. Her consciousness began to drift away. The thump of her head onto the desk was the last sound that was heard in that room.

Stuart Hobkins was always the awkward one at school – maybe it was because of his pink backpack that his late mother gave him for his tenth birthday. The bag was covered in My Little Pony cartoons and splashes of pink and purple, and every day when Stuart arrived at school he walked in shame through the halls, his cheeks blending in with the backpack. Some days, Stuart would think about discarding the bag because of the embarrassment, but he didn’t because he couldn’t afford a new one. At school, Jake Martin and his goons would tease Stuart during recess, and Stuart was forced to chase them around for his backpack.

Fred Boggleton was Stuart’s only friend. He had dandruff littering his hair, freckles, and a strange fear of mallards. Boggleton also wore the same fake mustache to school every day. Perhaps that was why they sat at their lunch table alone.

Today Stuart had packed his favorite lunch: a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich with pickle slices. The stench of the sandwich was horrifically malodorous, so he’d packed it in several wraps of tin foil. Stuart carefully took his lunch out of the cursed backpack. He scanned the cafeteria, looking for Fred. He was near the end of the lunch line. Stuart took a small nibble out of his sandwich. Some pickle juice dripped out of the sandwich and onto his lap. Stuart quickly grabbed his napkin and wiped it off, but then mayonnaise began to fall out of the sandwich and onto his lap. He set the sandwich down and got up to get more napkins. That was a mistake. As Stuart got up, the strap of his backpack tangled his foot and he lost balance. Stuart tripped and fell into Jake Martin who was walking across the aisle. A startled Jake Martin furiously shoved Stuart off of him and onto the floor. Slowly, Martin’s group of goons began to surround Stuart. One of them was holding Stuart’s pink backpack.

“Ay Jake,” the fool with the backpack called out. “I found the little chump’s toy.” Jake cackled at the sight of the backpack. He grabbed Stuart’s bag out of the hands of his minion and began squirting mayonnaise and ketchup into it.
“Hey! Stop!” yelled poor Stuart who was pinned on the ground by a rather stout boy. Martin’s gang continued to fill up Stuart’s backpack with food. The cafeteria soon reeked of tuna, egg salad, cheese, mustard, chili tacos, and milk. The backpack was turning into a weapon of mass nostril destruction. Finally, Stuart broke free from the lout’s grasp and without thinking, tackled Jake Martin! Unfortunately, Martin was holding a tray full of steaming hot chicken noodle soup. Jake fell backward onto the table behind them and landed in a cup of yogurt while the soup spilled onto a couple of other kids at that table. Oh no.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!” roared Jake. He was inches away from Stuart, his face bright red and his breath hot. Mango Chobani was splattered around Jake’s face, but most of it was covering his furrowed brows.
“I… I’m sorry,” whimpered Stuart, who was slowly turning into a tomato. Everyone was staring at Stuart and Jake. The cafeteria was almost completely silent. There was only the dripping of soup and occasional snickering.
“You are so dead,” uttered Jake. Now, a crowd of people began to form.
“Stuart!” someone in the crowd cried out.
It was Boggleton. He was holding a rectangular pizza from the school cafeteria. Stuart’s mouth opened, shaping into the form of an “O” and he frantically shook his head. But it was too late. Boggleton’s pizza soared across the lunchroom like a homing missile searching for its prey. Then it located its target: Jake’s face. By now, everyone had regained composure and were foraging for weapons. Stuart spotted Boggleton running from Jake Martin. Stuart narrowly dodged a bottle of chocolate milk and a chicken wing before reaching Boggleton.
“FOOD FIGHT!” the group cried in unison. Moments after the war cry, all hell broke loose. Jake Martin advanced on Stuart and Boggleton. He brandished a bottle of milk and jumped at Boggleton. Luckily, Stuart located a nearby tube of hot sauce and sprayed it on Jake, blinding him and making him withdraw temporarily. Meanwhile, the other students began to form two sides. Stuart and Boggleton took refuge behind one of the tables on the right side of the cafeteria. Burgers and fruit were flying across the battlefield. Suddenly, something splattered on Stuart and Fred. Stuart was soaked in warm milk. Boggleton exploded in anger and immediately began to throw everything that he could find. A wet and sour-smelling Stuart soon joined him. With Boggleton’s boost of energy, their side soon took the edge.

It was in the heat of the battle when the teachers finally arrived. Soon afterward, all of the students were forced out of the cafeteria and lunch ended. In the midst of the food fight, the concoction in Stuart’s backpack had spilled into an air vent. The entire school now smelled like a rotting corpse. Due to this, the principal was forced to end school early that day and the students were sent home.

Later that day, when Stuart was walking home with Boggleton, he realized something. It was all the backpack’s fault. His backpack was the reason there was a food fight in the first place, his backpack was the reason Jake Martin was now determined to throttle them, and his backpack was the reason that half of the grade just got suspended.

“It’s all because of this piece of junk!” snapped Stuart. He proceeded to hurl his bag on the sidewalk.
“Why do you have it anyway?” said Boggleton.
“My mom bought me it.”
“Well… then you should just buy a new one.”
“I-I don’t have enough money. I can’t afford it.”
“I can buy you a new one.”
“Really?” Stuart gasped.  
“Yeah sure.” Boggleton had an impish smile. “Come on, let’s get rid of your backpack.” The two ran to Boggleton’s house, which was just a couple minutes away from school. Boggleton grabbed a pair of scissors from his backpack and began to cut Stuart’s bag. First, he snipped off the straps. Pink and purple fabric littered the pavement of the Boggleton driveway. After slicing the straps off, Boggleton snatched a lighter from a shelf in the garage. He bestowed it upon Stuart.
“You do the honors,” he said.
“Okay.” Stuart took a deep breath and flicked the lighter on. A tiny flame emerged. The fire began to burn the outside of the backpack, and the cotton and cloth smoldered to ashes. A short while later the bag was almost entirely incinerated. The air reeked of smoke. The remaining part of the bag was covered in soot and embers. Any trace of pink or purple was no longer distinguishable. Stuart used the lighter once more to finish it off. The backpack was covered in flames again. While Stuart was watching the flames, Boggleton noticed something fall out of one of the open pouches on the ignited bag. It was a slip of paper.
“Stuart? What’s that?”  
“What?” Stuart noticed the paper on the ground. “I don’t know. It’s probably just some trash.”
Out of curiosity, Stuart picked up the slip. It had not been burnt; the pouches were closed when they lit the backpack aflame. The paper was a bit crumbled, but not completely. Stuart saw writing on it. It was written with black pen and the handwriting seemed very scribbled, yet familiar. The pen was faint and the soot from the fire obscured nearly all of the writing. The only part of the note that was not burnt and somewhat visible was the last section, at the bottom of the note. It said: I hope you live the rest of your life happily and become the person you want to be! Love, Mom. At first, Stuart was confused by the note but after reading it a couple more times he slowly realized what it was. It was supposed to be a part of the birthday card from his tenth birthday. The rest of the birthday card was burnt so Stuart assumed that the whole note had just been praise from his mother. He was baffled initially because his mother had always been hard to identify; Stuart could never understand what was on her mind and what she was feeling. Stuart’s mother had always been grumpy and typically didn’t applaud Stuart but sometimes she would behave as if she was longing for something. Most of the time though, his mother seemed bitter. Stuart thought this was because of the sickness that she developed months before his tenth birthday or because she was unsatisfied with him as a child, but when he thought about it, she’d always been that way. But now he knew that his mother had wanted him to be successful and happy.
“What’s it say?” asked Boggleton.
“Oh, um… it was just a price tag,” said Stuart as he crumbled up the note. After the two cleaned up the mess they had made, they headed to the store to buy Stuart a new backpack. But the whole time Stuart was thinking about his mother. It was the note: it had made him feel proud and loved.
If only he knew the truth.