The Things They Carried

APUSH Captain Jon Ju carried badge from a girl named Christina, one of his table mates in broadcasting class. He always carried it all the way around. He cherished the diamond shape badge as much as he care about his grades; he cherished the historical significance behind the badge as he was always interested in; he cherished the shallow feeling about her beyond that badge. But that was not the thing that he value the most. Jon always carried a letter, the edge almost frayed into a smooth semicircle, half-sealed in its original kraft cover. It was a letter from his girlfriend from Qingdao, not quite a love letter, but a brief introduction of herself on paper after months of chatting on Internet. The lines of the letter had been read by him for innumerable times, tasting each paragraph, each sentence, each comma, each period, he could feel that warm feeling as if his girlfriend was right in front of him. Every time when he was free at night, he could carry his love-containing letter together with its cover and sit on the bench in the cold wind. He would hold tight to the letters to make sure his precious memories were not blown away, but not that tight, being afraid to scratch the letter and make another personal mark on it––he wanted it to be exactly like how his girlfriend had written it on her bed. Scanning each line, pretending he had not ever read the letter, he wished he could find more underlying clew of how his girlfriend was loving him.

The things they carried was largely determined by school rules. Prohibited by the rules, food was the top one thing that students wanted to bring to school. Maybe sneaking them into the pocket, maybe cover them by their heavy instruments, maybe camouflage them into school necessities, students may or may not carry the things they like to eat. Maybe not a hamburger, but food that was small and tasty, food that could cheer one up even one was in big trouble and could not calm down. Jon for example, he carried three box of tea on Tuesday morning to prepare for his tea party discussion in class. Edgar Mao, the president of Student Council and the one who always hated to bring food to school, secretly carried a bar of chocolate and a bottle of milk to experiment different flavor when they combined with tea. Eric Li, the wide-recognized top computer genies, carried a box of breakfast cereal among his boxed programming robots without hiding. Amy Kong, the future food scientists who just learned neuroanatomy from UC Berkeley in summer, carried cooked goat brain that she bought from the breakfast station to enjoy such delicious food after lunch. Jenny Xu, who loved sweat stuff, carried two bars of white chocolate to school, looking forward to trade with Edgar for his dark chocolate.