Creative Writing Workshop

Isabelle Daniela Bertschinger

The plastic bag

Session 3 Automatic Writing

What they were doing looked remarkably as if they were squeezing a human body
into a large black plastic bag. I looked at Max. His eyes were fixated on the two
people. He carefully observed every movement they made. Max, I think I saw.
Shh, Max moved his arm in my direction and stopped some inches in front of my
face. We continued to observe them. We couldnt see them very clearly, since we had
to hide behind the bushes, but it was quite obvious to both of us what they were
doing. They were on the back seat of their car, the bag was between them. They didnt
seem to have noticed us. Oh my God, Max, I saw a hand, I could swear it was a
hand! Max looked at me. I could tell from his look that he saw it too.
The doors of the car opened and they hopped out. I winced. Max formed with his
hand a barrier in front of me, as if he was scared that I would suddenly run away. We
heard laughter. They were two guys. They were not older than 17 or 18 years. Wait a
moment. What did they do now? No, this couldnt have been happening! They took
the huge bag out of the car and put it on the ground. They locked the car, took the bag
and carried it to a house that was just by the side of the road. As they were walking,
the bag swayed to and fro. The middle part of the bag almost touched the ground. The
content looked soft. Soft like the body of a fresh corpse. The bag created the
impression of being heavy, they gasped as they were walking. The lights in the house
were already on. One of the guys took out the keys and unlocked the door. They
entered.
As soon as they were inside, we took out the phone and called the police to report the
homicide. It didnt take long and the police arrived. There were two officers, a man
and a woman. We showed them the house and they insisted that we came with them,
as witnesses. As we approached the house we could already hear loud music. You
sure it was this house? Seems they havin a party in there! asked the policeman. We
assured them that it was the right house. The woman rang the door bell. A young man
opened the door, in his right hand a beer. He turned pale as he saw the officers. He
surely knew why we were here. It seemed he had expected someone else. You live
here? asked the policeman. Yeah. May we come in? We heard about some
strange things going on here. Sure, come in. The young man looked confused.
We entered the house. There really was a party going on in there. We went into the
living room. And there it was, the plastic bag. It was lying on the floor, around it there
were standing at least ten young guys. They stared at the bag. They didnt seem to be
comfortable and they looked scared. They looked kind of relieved when they saw us.
We approached the bag. I began to shiver. Never had I seen a dead human being in my
entire life. How would it look like? The thought alone made me feel sick. The officer
just wanted to examine the bag, when all of a sudden it began to move. We screamed.
No! Now the person wasnt even dead! Then, with a loud scream, the bag was
shredded and out of it jumped a perfectly healthy young man. He couldnt stop
laughing when he saw our terrified faces. That was a good joke wasnt it?
Then he spotted the police officers and swallowed. I I didnt know I Oh my
God what will happen now? The policeman slowly walked over to him and
examined him with an evil eye. Then he began to laugh and tapped the mans
shoulder. Dont worry buddy We were also young some time ago! Sometimes you
just have to let it all hang out! Besides, that was the most enjoyable crime for quite
some time! He looked at Max and me and shook his head. Well, I dont wanna be

Creative Writing Workshop

Isabelle Daniela Bertschinger

rude guys but we have quite some things to discuss. Why not sit down and have a beer
with these nice young people?