Meat Bag goes to work. Meat Bag goes home. Meat Bag sleeps in her quiet, queen bed that she bought on the internet, that arrived in a narrow cardboard box with a common word for a company name with a non-essential letter missing (a silent e perhaps), that attacked her like a can of snakes when she opened the package, that off-gassed petroleum for a week. She bought a bedframe recommended by a Trusted Review Website because it was sturdy and reasonably priced; it only squeaks a little.

Meat Bag goes back to work in the morning. Her ceiling drips water on top of her head. Her boss accuses her of poking holes in the ceiling. Meat Bag wants to say that she would rather work on the first floor so she can be the first to drown when it floods, but the water dripping on her head is a good start. She wants to say this, but says she will try to fix the hole. She will be a good worker who loves her job as much as she loves her health insurance, so she can get her hormones and surgeries paid for, so she can be a Female Meat Bag, rather than a Meat Bag (culturally Meat Bags are assumed male, but the term can be used interchangeably for all Meat Bag genders; it is not a good system and Meat Bags hate it the most, especially when there are three gender options on surveys: Male, Female, Meat Bag). Meat Bag opens her lunchbox—another recommendation from the Trusted Review Website—and eats her lunch meats and cheese squares on artisanal crackers with imported olives and peak season strawberries on the side.

Meat Bag is stuck in traffic for several hours on her way home. She learns later that the driver just vanished in the middle of driving, causing a fifty-car pileup. Meat Bag also learns that the driver was another Meat Bag like her—the only fatality in the accident—but they reported her death using her old name and wrong pronouns. Meat Bag cries because that is what meat does when meat sits outside for too long. Meat Bag does not sleep well that night because there is a lump in her mattress that is not her dog. She is already past the 60-Night Sleep Trial Period so she cannot send her mattress to a homeless shelter as part of their 60-Night Sleep Trial Period Guarantee. Meat Bag tries to move to a different part of the bed, but Meat Dog takes up too much room.

Everyone gets their performance reviews at work the next day. Meat Bag has lots of Needs Improvements. Her boss tells Meat Bag that her best quality is how she shows up to work on-time. Meat Bag does not feel great about her job after her performance review. She sometimes hates being a Meat Bag. She wonders why she is part of this company, why she has to make incremental improvements in her life so she can have her health insurance and eat her estradiol too.

A co-worker comes up to Meat Bag and asks, “Hey, Meat Bag. You ever feel like a big ol’ bag of meat sometimes?”

Meat Bag looks at them and sighs. “All the damn time.” She tries to force a smile that shows them that they are in this together.

The co-worker looks annoyed and disgusted. “Why are you so weird?”

Meat Bag looks at her phone during her lunch break. She looks at reviews on the Trusted Review Website, because she wants a new non-lumpy mattress, but is disappointed that their top recommendation is the lumpy mattress she already owns. On the Feed, she sees an article about another vanishing Meat Bag, also misgendered, also deadnamed. Meat Bag wants to cry, cry. These vanishings are happening every day. She wants to know why this is not national news, why no one seems to pay attention except for a few people on the Feed. Everyone only seems to care about creating a separate Meat Bag Olympics and separate Meat Bag bathrooms so all Meat Bags can cram into a single stall and pee their Meat Pants while waiting in line because Meat Bags are apparently so numerous and pervasive that they are a threat to the integrity of national bathrooms and the Olympics. The ceiling drips with greater frequency on Meat Bag, so she moves her body and puts her garbage can under the drips.

That night, Meat Bag locks her dog out of the room and masturbates to videos of other Meat Bags like her. Seeing variations of her body eroticized turns her on, although her therapist tells her that this is a bad sign, that no one will give her hormones or surgeries if her idea of being a Female Meat Bag is because she is turned on by the idea of becoming a Female Meat Bag. She thinks this is old-fashioned as she wipes up the mess on her Meat Bag body. When she lets her dog back into the room, Meat Dog jumps on Meat Bag, licks her face, and jumps in the bed. The lump has gotten bigger in the mattress and Meat Bag cannot fall asleep that night. She thinks about all the other Meat Bags who have vanished. Raptured but not in a good way. She loves them and is sad about all the passion they left behind in this world.

At work the next day, Meat Bag’s boss tells her that everyone in the office hates her and that while meat is socially acceptable, it is inhumane. After her boss leaves, Meat Bag feels the water dripping on her head, turning into a thin stream, then a deluge. Her body becomes wet. Wetter than wet. She feels dissolved. She hopes that this is the flood that will take her away. She hopes that this is her turn to vanish.

 

Hannah Gregory is a trans, queer writer from Western Massachusetts. She lives with her wife and dog. More of her work is forthcoming in Passages North and X-R-A-Y. Find her on Twitter @hannah_birds.