Shelf Life

H. C. Sluys

Everything was locked down. The doors were shut tight, steel security gates pulled down over them to deter eager, nocturnal opportunists. The floors had been mopped, the sections combed for the leavings of messy consumers. The lights were all out, the TV monitors staring blankly, the standing cardboard advertisements beckoning uselessly to no one. It had only been with the last click of the last key in the last lock by the last store manager . . . that the store had come to life.

Dolls in the toy section were awakening, stretching, and looking around at their fellows. Garden hoses in the home section whispered reassuring promises of water to the plastic-wrapped flowers. The blank TVs sighed and sat on their shelves, depressed and wishing aloud to the DVDs and video games that their images would grace their screens once again. And one teddy bear named Paul wandered the aisles looking lost.

Paul had decided to explore the massive department store that night, and had gotten lost in the women’s clothing. After having a blue shirt with sparkling pink script drop on him, labeling him a “hottie,” he became entangled for a time, but eventually struggled out of it. He walked farther than he’d ever gone before. Light fixtures called out to him, asked him if he needed directions. He told them he was just looking, but thanked them anyway.

After an hour of traveling the mazes of the rows of conversing products, he came upon the grocery section, and at the very back encountered the milk and juice, refrigerated in their rows. He looked up at the milk with his black button eyes. A single quart was quietly sobbing.

“What’s wrong?” asked Paul.

“Why should you care?” asked the milk.

“I just heard you crying, and I wondered why, is all. There are so many wonderful things in this store, and I wasn’t sure what could have made you so sad.”

Another carton beside the crying one said in a crabby voice, “if you really must know, he’s almost reached the end of his shelf life and he’s feeling a bit upset about it. Tomorrow’s his last day.”

Paul would have blinked, if teddy bears could blink. Instead, his velvety synthetic-fur arms waved in confusion. “Shelf life? What’s a shelf life?”

“He’s going to expire,” said the carton to the left of the crying one, as though it should have been obvious.

“Expire?” asked Paul. “I suppose I just don’t understand. Why don’t I have a shelf life?”

“Oh, I’m sure you do,” said the crabby milk. “It just isn’t as obvious as the shelf life of a milk carton. Look!” it vibrated slightly in the direction of the crying milk, indicating the date on his top.

“I don’t understand that,” said Paul. “What is it?”

“It means tomorrow. See? January fourth. Tomorrow’s date. We milk cartons know all about dates.” This caused a fresh burst of sobbing to be wrenched from the unhappy milk.

“Okay. Well, I don’t understand shelf life, but what happens when someone expires?”

A gallon of orange juice turned its attention from its discussion of quantum physics with the Camembert cheese and joined in. “They disappear. They’re taken in their sleep, and we never see them again. As you can see, it’s quite terrifying. Of course, we can be taken at any time, often before we reach our expiration date, but at that date, it’s absolutely certain that we will be gone!”

Paul thought for a moment, and then said, “but, if we could be taken at any time, doesn’t it make more sense to just enjoy our time in the store and make friends with the other products?”

The cheese chimed in, saying, “what good are friends when they could be gone any day?! We’d best use our time to discuss intelligent things, like physics.”

“What’s physics?” asked Paul.

The sobbing milk snapped at him miserably, “you certainly are full of questions, (sniffle). Can’t you feel any sympathy for the doomed?”

“I don’t see that you’re doomed,” the bear answered. “How do you know where we go when our shelf lives expire?”

A passing box of cat litter shook with a sandy sound, “s-s-some s-s-say that th-th-there’s Another Place, beyond The Doors. A p-place outside of the st-st-store!!!”

“Well that’s all very well and good,” said Paul, “but does that mean that we should let that affect how we treat other products in the store? Or ourselves, for that matter? I’d rather not spend my time here worrying about when I’m going to leave.”

“You just don’t understand!!” cried the upset milk.

Atop the cat litter box rode a Christmas ornament in the form of a small, orange, cartoonish cat. It pointed a plastic claw at the sad milk, “trust in the Another Place, and you will have no need to fear the end of your shelf life!”

“I’m so tortured! Life isn’t fair!!!” sobbed the milk.

“Calm, my friend,” said the cat. “I’ve come to tell you of The Manufacturer, who has put us all here in order to go out of the store to the Another Place. But, we can only move on to the Another Place if we believe in his almighty power!!!”

“Hold on,” said Paul, “if The Manufacturer put us here so that we could go to the Another Place, wouldn’t he let us go there whether we knew about him or not?”

“Repent!” cried the cat. “I’ve no time for this ridiculosity!” He pointed to the crying milk. “Will you repent and believe in The Manufacturer, thus guaranteeing your entry into the Another Place?! Quickly, make the choice before you’re gone for good!”

The milk continued to cry. “It’s no use . . . I don’t want to expire!”

“Then I’ve no time for the likes of you! Onward!” cried the cat, and he was transported away by the shuffling box of litter, which had by this time begun to leak out of one corner from the wear of travel.

Said the orange juice to the cheese, “do you suppose The Manufacturer looks like a gallon of orange juice? And if so, does he share the same feelings as I have?”

The cheese pondered for a moment and answered, “interesting theory, but I have a better one for you . . . what if he looked like Camembert cheese?! I’m sure that being a logical being, he would prefer such a form.”

“I’ve had enough of this prattle,” inserted the crabby milk, “I’m going back to sleep.” And so he did. Which left Paul to speak to the crying milk, being that the orange juice and the cheese were once again fully absorbed in their speculation.

“I just (gasp) don’t know (sniffle) what to doooo,” he sobbed.

Paul frowned in contemplation. “I don’t think you should worry.”

“What if . . . The Manufacturer . . . h-hates meee?!”

“I doubt that. Why would he have created you if he hates you?” asked Paul. “If The Manufacturer exists, (and there’s no reason to believe that he doesn’t), then he doubtless would want you to be happy, having created you and all. I still don’t understand this “expiration,” but why should you worry about it?”

The crying abruptly stopped. “You mean . . . you . . . you don’t think I should? But what if something terrible happens?”

“Then something terrible will happen. But it will probably happen whether you sit here crying or whether you explore the store and be happy and spread joy in the last bit of your shelf life here.”

“But what if the cat is right? What if I have to repent?”

“Repent of what?”

“The fact that I’m not sure, I suppose.”

“I think the only thing you have to repent for is sitting here crying instead of being what The Manufacturer called you to be.”

“And what is that?” asked the milk, his voice trembling.

“It’s written all over your carton. You just have to slow down and take the time to read it,” said Paul.

“Maybe you’re right, (sniffle). Thank you for your kindness. I’ll try,” said the milk.

With that, Paul walked on. He speculated that The Manufacturer did in fact exist, as it seemed that everything in the store was made, was all unique, and he could see an underlying beauty in it all. The brands and the brandless, all lived together in the store, all had arrived there and all would leave there. There was a timeless unity in it all.

It was even said that at one point, The Manufacturer had communicated with the products by way of The Clerk, and even continued to do so. The Clerk, lovingly putting each product in its place in the store, lay at the center of every product’s life, and understood them intimately, from apples to bears to cabbage to zippers.

Paul the bear strove to live his life by this spirit, and tended to not be phased by products such as the cat, the cheese, and the crying milk. They were all trying, in their own way, to understand something that he himself felt like he had within his grasp, but was constantly slipping away. He didn’t care much for the idea of the Another Place, as the cat seemed to be so focused on. He figured that the Another Place didn’t much matter if one spent one’s shelf life riding atop a box of litter. The cheese vainly tried to understand the world from its own views of science, but stopped short of living any real kind of shelf life, whereas the milk wasted its shelf life in fear of the end of it. Perhaps it would learn, however. The Clerk seemed to be the best example to follow, but Paul had to admit that he had never met the creature.

Yet, it didn’t stop him believing that there was such a person who cared for every product, nor that this was the greatest way to live one’s life. It seemed the best way to be, seeing as how The Manufacturer went to such effort to make everything. The whole idea did seem silly at times, and Paul wasn’t so wrapped up in it all that he couldn’t step back and laugh about it every once in a while. There were other ways to look at the whole venture, but it seemed that few products could get much of a handle on any kind of way to live out their shelf lives truly happily. Paul chose The Clerk, and his thoughts on the whole idea were very close and special to him, The Clerk being clearly connected with his ideas of The Manufacturer.

On his way back to his bin of stuffed friends, Paul stopped by the gardening section and had an interesting conversation with a can of fertilizer about personal growth. He moved past a rack of natural products, including a small, curvaceous bottle of Easy Bee honey who was busily singing a sultry tune. He nodded to her respectfully and continued on his journey. Gradually, he came home to the toys. He passed by racecars that were vrooming up and down the aisles, action figures that were showing off their muscles, and dolls combing their hair as they stared into their plastic mirrors. He felt like he cared for them all, and was glad that he came home. It had been a long night, and he needed to rest his cotton-stuffed body.

Settling down into the bin, Paul laid his head down and went gently off to sleep.

The next night, neither Paul nor the crying milk could be found. The cheese thought they may have disappeared completely, the juice and the crabby milk that it was good riddance in general, and the cat that they had gone to a place he called The Basement. The fertilizer missed his conversations with Paul, and the toys all lamented his leaving and sang some songs in his honor.

But as to the nature of the place or places where the two of them went, it seems that the rest had to agree to disagree. Paul, however, would have surely been happy whatever happened to him, as long as he knew he’d fulfilled, during his shelf life, the purpose for which he had been manufactured.