​​​​UPSHOTS

F   I   C   T   I   O   N 

The Jacket

I want that jacket. I need that jacket. I can’t get it out of my mind. A short golf-style jacket, simple in design. Ripstop nylon exterior with cotton lining and acetate sleeve linings to get in and out of it easily. Looks decent. In navy or maybe light tan. Maybe it would suit my need to look coolly “retro” wearing what my father wore in his day? It has a strap collar, reminiscent of early motorcycle jackets but not as heavy and pronounced as in a real motorcycle jacket. Maybe I’d be taken for a biker.

I have jackets already. Many jackets. Definitely too many, and I really don’t need this one except otherwise, and desirously so. I want to buy that jacket, to acquire it. I want to salve my obsession, which won’t end until I have it. And then I’ll be let down because there isn’t a jacket to desire anymore – I’ll have it. Probably I’d focus on something else shortly after. I’ll be needing to want something, otherwise there is nothing.

What does this say about me? Obsessive? Materialistic? Why don’t I do something reasonable like get rid of an old jacket every time I get a new one? Do I like to hoard these things? Is life so boring otherwise? If I were truly poor  and I’d desire something like, say, an orange, would I be more justified in wanting it? Is a poor person’s desire more righteous than a not-poor person’s desire?

So I’ll probably buy this jacket and end this endless torture. It will have its fifteen minutes of fame and then be relegated to the back of the closet like the others. If it has a soul, it will have been given life and admiration for a short period of time and then it will fade and cease to exist. In the future, I might say occasionally “Yes, I remember that jacket” and think of it fondly. If it has a soul, what more could any jacket ask for?