The Cart Never Empties

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Listen: the boxes arrive on Tuesdays.

They arrive on Wednesdays too. And Thursdays. And every other day that exists, including the ones that don’t feel real anymore, the ones that bleed into each other like watercolors left in the rain.

My name is Marion Webb and I am thirty-four years old and I have not seen my kitchen floor in six years.

Six years.

That’s 2,190 days of not seeing something that cost me $847 to install. Porcelain tile. Ivory cream. The contractor said it would brighten up the whole room. I paid him extra to finish in three days because I was having people over that weekend.

I didn’t have people over that weekend.

I haven’t had people over since.

The tile is down there somewhere, under the food dehydrator I bought when I thought I’d make my own trail mix, under the bread maker I bought when I thought I’d be the kind of person who fills their home with the smell of fresh bread on Sunday mornings, under the juicer and the spiralizer and the pasta extruder and the waffle iron shaped like the state of Texas.

I don’t remember ordering a Texas-shaped waffle iron.

But there it is.

Here’s what nobody tells you about loneliness: it has a shopping cart. It scrolls at 2 AM. It knows your credit card number by heart.

My mother died on a Thursday.

I want to tell you that’s when it started, but that would be a lie, and I’m trying not to lie anymore. Not to you. Not to myself. Not to the boxes that are listening.

They are always listening.

It started before. Maybe when David left. Maybe before David. Maybe it started when I was seven and got sick for three weeks and my father brought me a new toy every day to make up for the fact that he worked sixty hours a week and didn’t know how else to say I love you.

The toys piled up on my dresser. I didn’t play with most of them. But I kept them all because throwing them away felt like throwing away the love itself.

That’s the trick, isn’t it?

We don’t buy things. We buy the feeling we hope they’ll give us. We buy the person we think we’ll become once we own them.

I bought running shoes so I’d be healthy. I bought a ukulele so I’d be creative. I bought a $300 fountain pen so I’d be the kind of person who writes thoughtful letters to old friends.

I don’t have old friends anymore.

They stopped calling after the third time they invited themselves over and I said no. After the fifth time. After they stopped asking permission and just showed up and I wouldn’t answer the door.

Sarah stood outside for twenty minutes. I heard her through the boxes. “Marion, I know you’re in there. I can see your shadow. Please. I’m worried about you.”

I didn’t move. I barely breathed.

She left.

That was 847 days ago. I know because I bought a daily meditation journal that day to work through my feelings. I never opened it. It’s supporting a tower of organic cotton bath towels near the bathroom door.

The bathroom door doesn’t close anymore.

Nothing closes. The boxes have made sure of that. They wedge themselves in doorways. They occupy the spaces where doors used to swing. They’ve turned my apartment into an open floor plan I never asked for.

Here’s what my Tuesday looks like:

I wake up at 6:47 AM because my body still remembers when I had a job that required me to be somewhere. I don’t have that job anymore. I told them it was to pursue freelance work. Creative freedom. The laptop lifestyle.

Really I just couldn’t leave the apartment.

I navigate to the bathroom using the path. The path changes every night. The boxes rearrange themselves while I sleep. I used to think I was crazy. Now I know better.

Now I know they’re training me.

Teaching me that I don’t own them.

They own me.

The shower has seventeen bottles of shampoo in it. Each one promised something different. Volume. Shine. Repair. Moisture. Color protection for hair I’ve never dyed. I use whichever one I can reach. Today it’s the tea tree mint. It smells like the person I was supposed to become.

She was organized. She had a skincare routine. She recycled.

I can’t recycle because I can’t get to the recycling bin. It’s behind four months of boxes I keep meaning to break down.

I’ll do it this weekend.

(I say this every week.)

After the shower I stand in front of my closet. I bought an organizational system last year. Velvet hangers. Shelf dividers. Matching storage boxes with little windows so you can see what’s inside.

I never installed any of it.

My clothes live in garbage bags now. Clean garbage bags, I tell myself. But garbage bags nonetheless.

I pull out jeans and a sweater. The sweater still has the tags on it. $78. Organic merino wool. I bought it six months ago to wear to a coffee date I never scheduled with a person I never asked out.

I wear it anyway. The tags scratch my neck.

Breakfast is a protein bar I bought in a pack of thirty-six because buying in bulk is financially responsible. Financially responsible. That’s what the Amazon description said. I have nine unopened boxes of these protein bars.

They taste like cardboard and optimism.

I sit down at my laptop. It’s balanced on a stack of printer paper that sits on top of a box containing a printer I’ve never unboxed. The laptop fan wheezes. It’s dying. I should buy a new one.

I add a laptop to my cart.

Then I delete it.

Then I add it again.

This is what they don’t tell you about addiction: it’s not about the thing itself. It’s about the space between wanting and having. That space where anything is possible. Where the laptop will make you productive and the running shoes will make you disciplined and the instant pot will make you the kind of person who meal preps on Sundays.

The space between wanting and having is the only place I’m still perfect.

My inbox has 34,562 unread emails.

Most of them are shipping confirmations.

I scan through them. Order placed. Order shipped. Order delivered. It’s like a heartbeat. Proof that I’m still here. Still participating. Still a valued member of the economy.

My therapist asked me once, back when I still went to therapy: “What are you trying to fill?”

I didn’t answer.

But I know now.

I’m trying to fill the space where my mother used to be. The space where David used to be. The space where I used to be, before I hollowed myself out and replaced my insides with product reviews and star ratings and customer testimonials.

“This changed my life,” they write.

It never changes your life.

It just gives you something to do until you die.

At 11:33 AM the doorbell rings. It doesn’t work properly anymore. There’s a package wedged against it so it makes a sound like a dying wasp. The delivery driver doesn’t wait. They never wait. They set the package down and photograph it and leave evidence that they were here even though I’ll never prove I existed at all.

I excavate myself from the living room.

The living room used to have a couch. It still does, technically. But the couch is an archaeological site. The bottom layer is books I was going to read. Then workout equipment I was going to use. Then kitchen gadgets. Then decorative throw pillows I bought to make the space feel cozy.

You can’t feel cozy in a coffin.

That’s what this is now. A coffin I’m building myself. One purchase at a time.

The package is small. It’s from Etsy. I don’t remember ordering anything from Etsy. I’ve been buying practical things lately. Necessary things.

Who am I kidding?

None of it is necessary.

I bring the package inside. The boxes shift to let me pass and then close behind me like a mouth swallowing food. I’ve started to notice the patterns. The way they breathe. The way they pulse. The way a stack of vitamins I’ll never take tilts microscopically to the left every day, like it’s trying to tell me something.

Maybe it’s trying to escape.

Maybe we both are.

I set the Etsy package on top of a tower of scented candles I bought during a phase where I thought I’d be the kind of person who takes baths. Long baths with candles and wine and a book. Self-care. That’s what Instagram called it.

I took one bath.

The candles are still wrapped in plastic.

My phone buzzes. Flash sale. Forty percent off. Ends in three hours.

My heart rate increases.

This is the part they don’t show you in the before and after photos. The way your pulse quickens when you see a discount. The way your palms sweat. The way you can feel the dopamine pooling in your brain like water in a basement.

I need it.

I don’t need it.

I need it.

The argument plays out in my head like a script I’ve memorized. I’ll use it. I won’t use it but I might someday. It’s a good price. I’d be stupid not to buy it. Everyone else is buying it right now, look at the reviews, 4,847 reviews can’t be wrong.

I buy it.

The relief is immediate and short-lived. Thirty seconds of peace. Then the guilt. Then the shame. Then the promise that this was the last time.

It’s never the last time.

At 3:00 PM I take a conference call. My camera is angled so they see only my face and the small square of wall I’ve kept clear behind me. It’s painted sage green. Calming. Professional.

Six inches to the left of the frame: a wall of boxes so high it’s started to bow the ceiling.

“Marion, you’re on mute,” someone says.

I unmute. “Sorry. Yes. I agree with the strategy outlined in the deck.”

I have no idea what deck they’re talking about.

I haven’t been paying attention for six months.

But I nod and smile and say the right words at the right times and they don’t notice that I’m disappearing. That every week there’s a little less of me. That the boxes are filling in the spaces where I used to be.

After the call I stand up to stretch and realize I can’t.

The boxes have grown closer.

They do this. Incrementally. While I’m sitting still. While I’m distracted. They creep inward like a tide and by the time I notice I’ve lost another six inches of floor space.

I used to have a living room and a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom.

Now I have one room with paths.

The paths get narrower every day.

I try to push a box back. It doesn’t move. I push harder. Something inside it shifts and settles and the box holds its ground. I push with both hands. The tower sways. Threatens. Makes a sound like a growl.

I stop pushing.

“Okay,” I say out loud. “Okay. You win.”

The boxes don’t respond but I feel their satisfaction. It seeps through the cardboard. It fills the air like humidity.

Dinner is takeout. I order it on an app. I used to order from restaurants I wanted to try. New places. Exciting places. Now I order from the same three places on rotation because they’re the only ones whose delivery drivers can find my door through the boxes stacked in the hallway.

The hallway isn’t mine. It’s shared. But the boxes have spilled out of my apartment and into the common space and none of my neighbors have said anything because saying something would require them to acknowledge what’s happening.

We’re all very good at not acknowledging things.

The food arrives. I eat it standing up because the table is covered and the couch is buried and the bed is a myth I tell myself exists under all those packages.

I throw the takeout container in the direction of the kitchen trash can.

I miss.

I always miss.

The container joins seventeen other containers creating a small mountain of organic waste and guilt.

I’ll clean it up this weekend.

(I won’t clean it up this weekend.)

At 9:00 PM I take a shower. The bathroom mirror is fogged up. I wipe it clear and look at myself and I don’t recognize the person looking back.

She’s pale. Thin. Her eyes are too big in her face. She looks like someone who lives underground.

She looks like someone who’s being digested.

I brush my teeth with a toothbrush I bought in a pack of twelve because twelve was cheaper per unit than one. I have forty-seven toothbrushes in this apartment. I counted them once during a moment of clarity that felt like breaking the surface of water to breathe.

Then I went under again.

At 10:00 PM I get into bed. Or onto bed. The bed is covered with packages I haven’t opened. I’ve made a small nest in the center. Just enough room for my body.

I used to sleep diagonally. Sprawled out like a starfish. Taking up space like I had a right to exist.

Now I sleep curled up. Fetal. Trying to be small enough that the boxes won’t notice me.

But they always notice.

At 10:47 PM I open my phone. Just to check. Just to see if anything new came in.

There’s a notification. Package delivered.

I didn’t hear the knock.

I should get up and bring it inside. I should. But I’m tired. So tired. And the path to the door seems longer than it did this morning.

I’ll get it tomorrow.

My thumb hovers over the Amazon app. I shouldn’t open it. I know I shouldn’t open it. But my thumb moves on its own. Muscle memory. Addiction in physical form.

The app opens. The homepage loads. Recommended for you. Based on your browsing history. Customers who bought this also bought.

The algorithm knows me better than I know myself.

It knows I’m lonely at 10:47 PM on a Tuesday. It knows I’m scared. It knows I’m trying to fill something that can’t be filled.

And it offers me solutions.

A weighted blanket for anxiety. A book about tidying up. A journal for gratitude. A candle that smells like clean laundry. A picture frame for photos I don’t have of people who aren’t here.

I add them all to my cart.

My cart has sixty-three items in it.

I’m not going to buy them. I’m just going to save them. For later. For when I have money. For when I need them.

(I always need them.)

At 11:15 PM I’m still scrolling. The boxes around me settle and breathe and I feel them watching me through the darkness. Cardboard eyes. Packing tape mouths. They’re patient. They know I’ll feed them soon.

I always feed them.

At 11:47 PM I buy the weighted blanket.

Just the weighted blanket.

The confirmation email arrives in my inbox before I can change my mind. Order placed. Arriving Thursday.

The relief is immediate.

The shame follows three seconds later.

But underneath both feelings is something else. Something I don’t want to name.

Excitement.

Something new is coming. Something that might fix me. Something that might fill the space that keeps growing inside my chest.

I set my phone down. Close my eyes. Try to sleep.

The boxes whisper.

They’re saying: more.

They’re always saying: more.

At 2:34 AM I wake up to a sound.

It’s coming from the living room. A rustling. A shifting. The sound of something moving that shouldn’t be moving.

I lie very still.

The sound continues. Deliberate. Purposeful. Something is rearranging itself.

I should get up and look.

I don’t get up and look.

At 3:00 AM my phone buzzes. An email. Subject line: Your package is out for delivery.

It’s three in the morning.

Nothing is out for delivery at three in the morning.

I open the email. It’s from an address I don’t recognize. The message is blank except for a tracking number.

I click the tracking number.

The page loads.

Delivered.

I sit up. My heart is pounding. I didn’t hear the door. I didn’t hear anything except the rustling and that stopped five minutes ago.

I grab my phone and use the flashlight to navigate the path. The boxes lean in as I pass. They’re excited. I can feel it. Whatever arrived, they want it here.

The door is blocked. There’s a package in front of it.

It’s big. Refrigerator big. Coffin big.

I didn’t order this.

The box is unmarked. No label. No return address. Just brown cardboard and packing tape and a silence so complete it feels like the apartment is holding its breath.

I should call someone.

But who would I call?

Sarah stopped answering my texts.

My father died three years ago.

I don’t have anyone else.

I reach out to touch the box.

It’s warm.

Cardboard shouldn’t be warm.

I pull my hand back. The box sits there. Patient. Waiting. It knows I’m going to open it. It knows I can’t help myself.

This is what they don’t tell you about addiction: it always escalates. The thing that worked last time stops working. You need more. You need bigger. You need something that will finally, finally fill the hole.

I find scissors. I cut the tape. The sound is loud in the silence. Loud and final.

The box opens.

Inside is another box.

And inside that box is another box.

And another.

And another.

I keep opening. I keep cutting tape and pulling back cardboard and reaching inside for the next layer. My hands are shaking. My breath comes fast. I need to see what’s at the center. I need to know what I ordered.

Box after box after box.

Until finally.

Finally.

At the center is a mirror.

I pick it up. It’s small. Handheld. Antique-looking. The kind of thing I would have bought and forgotten about.

I look into it.

The reflection isn’t mine.

It’s me, but not me. It’s me from ten years ago. Before David left. Before my mother died. Before the first package arrived and taught me that buying things could feel like love.

She’s smiling.

She has friends.

She has a clean apartment and plans for the weekend and a future that isn’t made of cardboard.

“Come back,” she says.

But I can’t.

I can’t because I’ve ordered too much. Bought too much. Accumulated too much. The weight of it all has pinned me here like a butterfly in a case.

The mirror cracks.

Not along the glass.

Along my face.

I drop it. It hits the floor and shatters and I see myself reflected in a thousand pieces.

A thousand versions of who I could have been if I’d just stopped clicking.

Just stopped buying.

Just stopped trying to fill the space with things that can’t love me back.

The boxes rustle.

They’re laughing.

I back away from the broken mirror and the nested boxes and the truth I don’t want to face.

My phone buzzes.

Flash sale.

Fifty percent off.

Everything must go.

My thumb hovers over the screen.

The boxes hold their breath.

And I click.

I always click.

Because here’s what nobody tells you about the moment you realize you have a problem:

Realizing doesn’t stop you.

Knowing doesn’t save you.

You can see the trap and still walk into it with your eyes open because the trap feels safer than the alternative.

The alternative is emptiness.

The alternative is silence.

The alternative is being alone with yourself and discovering there’s nothing there.

So you buy.

And you buy.

And you buy.

Until you can’t see the floor anymore.

Until you can’t see yourself anymore.

Until there’s nothing left but boxes and the person you might have been if you’d been brave enough to want less.

The cart never empties.

The cart never empties.

The cart never empties.

At 4:00 AM I place an order.

At 4:15 AM I place another.

At 4:30 AM the boxes shift closer.

They’re making room.

They’re always making room.

Because they know what I know:

Tomorrow there will be more.