The suitcase that came back
The carousel keeps turning after the last suitcase is gone.
There were twelve of you, then five. A man with a cello case. A woman asleep on her luggage. Then just you. And that mechanical belt turning slowly, carrying nothing.
You stay longer than you need to. Everyone does.
The next morning, just a form. A claim number. A reassuring voice telling you that, usually, everything turns up within two days. You buy a toothbrush. A sweater in almost the right size. After a month, you stop checking your phone. After a year, you forget what was even inside.
No one notices. Not even you.
Twenty years later, on an ordinary Tuesday, the phone rings. On the other end, a woman from the airport: “Good morning, this is Claudia. I think I have something that belongs to you.”
The suitcase had been sitting in storage, forgotten behind other people’s umbrellas. The tag still holds up against time, your name written in a handwriting you would no longer use.
You open it right there, on the kitchen floor.
Inside, you find an old blue sweater, its sleeves folded inward. You stopped folding them that way a long time ago.
Then a map of Buenos Aires, worn along the creases, opened and closed too many times before you left. One street is circled in pencil, no name beside it. You already knew where you were going.
A notebook turns up too. On the first page, the list of things you wanted to do once you arrived. Some you must have managed to do; others you must have forgotten you ever wanted. The third one is crossed out and rewritten just below. The last written page breaks off abruptly, a line left half-finished.
Between the pages, Spanish words surface with translations in the margin, and a sentence copied from a book, underlined twice. The title has slipped from memory, but the words haven’t.
Finally, an address book with a red cover. Some of those numbers you could still dial; other people have vanished without a trace. One name is written only in pencil, as if she already knew he wouldn’t stay long. The area codes belong to an era that no longer exists. On the inside cover, your name and that old address you left years ago, with the words: “If found, please return to…”
You hold each object a little longer than necessary, as if weighing it. You think of that girl searching for her way on the map. Of her crossing out her plans only to write them again. Of how she trusted everything to paper, convinced some things would last forever. She had no idea how the future would turn out. And yet she closed that suitcase and left anyway.
That girl, without knowing it, cleared the way for you. She took such good care of you.
You close the address book. You leave the line half-finished.
And you go back to folding your sleeves inward.
Questions for reflection
Which old habit of yours, like folding your sleeves inward, might be worth taking up again?
What is your “line left half-finished”? Do you want to complete it, or is it right to leave it as it is?
What suitcase are you closing today, not knowing what lies ahead, for the person you will be twenty years from now?
