The Girl Who Returned Her Identity

She arrived at the counter just after opening, wearing last season’s Saint Laurent sunglasses and a look that said she hadn’t slept in days—though not in a tragic way. More like she’d been occupied.

“Returns?” the associate asked. She didn’t look up.

“I need to return this.” The woman placed a translucent box on the counter. Inside was… something. It shimmered, pulsed faintly, and smelled of vintage Balmain and adolescent fear.

The clerk raised an eyebrow. “Ma’am, what exactly is this?”

“My identity,” she said flatly. “It’s not working for me anymore. I tried styling it differently. Therapy. A bang. A silent retreat in Big Sur. Nothing stuck.”

The associate tapped the screen. “Do you have the receipt?”

She did. It was long, scrolled like a ribbon.
Signed at the bottom: Mother. Media. Market Trends.

“We only accept returns within 30 days,” the clerk replied, too rehearsed.

“Time is conceptual,” she said, “especially when constructed identities are involved.”

The clerk blinked. The box blinked back. A manager was summoned.

She spent the next hour explaining that while the identity had served her in the beginning - gotten her into the right rooms, into the right dresses - it had since grown rigid. People expected her to wear it like a uniform. Predictable. Branded.
“But I’m post-narrative now,” she whispered.

The manager finally leaned over. “You know we can’t actually refund a personality.”

“I don’t want a refund,” she said. “I want store credit.”

And with that, she slid on a new pair of lenses, turned, and disappeared through the revolving door, leaving her former self behind, wrapped in tissue, tagged with markdown stickers, waiting to be resold.