They carried books and pencils. They carried laptops, USB, cell phones, blank pages,
the right amount of money, the newspaper, textbooks, and much more. They carried
water bottles. Sarah Drury carried a pink covered Jane Austen book, a pink laptop and
a pink ipod full of backstreet boys songs. Karoll Mendez carried a cell phone, a
million tardiness notes and letters from a long distance relationship. Dina Salem
carried a canvas, an agenda, a sketchbook and a bag full of paint of all different
colors. Some things they carried in common. Taking turns, they carried this book bag
which weighed at least 30 pounds around. They shared the weight of stress and
pressure of time. They took up all the pressure of all the work, all the stress involved
with time management. Often, they carried the weakest. They carried at least 6
binders. They carried nights at the cinema, days of girlfriend talks, sleepovers, card
games, some board games, pictures of things that they had forgotten had happened.
They carried subjects, among them math and English. They carried memories and
thoughts and time and family issues and homework and so much more. They carried
life – the world, the situations, the present – millions of pictures who just showed how
these lives were lived. They carried dreams. The whole world, they carried it, the new
ideas, the change, the future, all of it, they carried the universe. By daylight they took
classes, at night they were different, but it was not the intense routines or the crazy
schedules to follow, it was the endless learning going on, the purpose. They went on
for the sake of following along. They carried their own future in their hands.
Based on the style of writing of author O'Brien used in his novel "The Things They Carried".
