(With apologies to Tim O’Brien)
Mike carried Eggo waffles for a girl named Eleven. They were not love waffles, but Mike Sheets was hoping, so he carried the box of Eggos down the stairs to the basement. During science class at Hawkins Middle School or trick-or-treating with his friends, he’d imagine dancing with Eleven at the annual Snow Ball. He’d imagine following her to the Hawkins Laboratory, where she would crush the skulls of bad men with her thoughts. In the evening, when his mother told him that it was time for bed, Mike left Eggos in the pillow fort and went to his bedroom, wondering whether Eleven was thought-crushing the skulls of bad men without him.
The things they carried were necessary because a faceless monster had come from another dimension and had murdered Barbara Holland. So they carried Realistic TRC-214 supercoms, bear traps, and a baseball bat with nails in it. Lucas Sinclair carried a wrist rocket and a camo headband. Dustin Henderson carried Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, an apple, a banana, and trail mix. Will Byers, who’d chosen to fireball a monster in a curiously prophetic game of Dungeons and Dragons, carried a depressing rendition of the second-most commercially successful Clash song.
All of the boys had bicycles, but Will wrecked his bike at Mirkwood and then got lost in the Upside Down.
The things they carried were an homage to eighties nerd culture, so Mike carried science club trophies and a toy Millennium Falcon. He and the other members of the Hawkins AV club carried a Heathkit ham shack radio unit until Eleven destroyed it when communicating across dimensions. Dustin carried a copy of X-Men 134, which was about a misunderstood superhero with telekinetic powers.
And because they weren’t particularly popular, they carried nicknames bullies had given them—Frogface, Toothless, Midnight, Weirdo. But they also carried a misunderstood friend with telekinetic powers, and they defeated the mouth-breathers when Eleven mind-squeezed a bully’s bladder.
They carried arcade quarters also. For Dig Dug.
At various times, in various situations, they carried Christmas lights and compasses. Mike carried a calculator watch and a twenty-two-inch Mitsubishi television that was approximately ten times bigger than Dustin’s. Lucas carried binoculars and an army knife. After Eleven turned a monster into ash, Will came back from the Upside Down but carried an evil slug inside him. He carried Bob Newby’s JVC when he went trick-or-treating with Mike, but he dropped the camcorder because he carried a connection to a Mind Flayer. Dustin, who wore a trucker cap with no logo, carried a polliwog named D’Artagnan that entered his life at the perfect time, because he was crushing hard on a girl named Max, but she was clearly into Lucas. He protected D’Artagnan even when his friends tried to kill it, but then D’Artagnan transformed into a malevolent demodog and promptly devoured Dustin’s cat.
Before Will summoned the demodogs from the Upside Down—before the Shadow Monster was exorcised from Will’s body and Eleven closed the gate to the Upside Down by thinking especially angry thoughts—Mike sat in the pillow fort in his basement and spoke to Eleven through his supercom. He wasn’t sure that she could hear him, but he imagined that she could. He imagined Eleven standing before him in his sister’s pink party dress. She’d bleed from her left nostril after flipping vans with her mind, and a Police song would play in the background as they danced at the Snow Ball. He might try to kiss Eleven quickly. Or he might not. He might just shrug and say, “Promise,” and watch from behind her as her head-tilts snapped their enemies’ spines.