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A quote: “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” ~~ Theodore Roosevelt
I’ll start with story …
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She was in the garden when she heard the excited voices of the children.
“Look at what we found!” They dragged an old suitcase up the path, furrowing the dirt.
The sunlight on her shoulders grew cold as the delphiniums and gladiolas leaned away.
Her trowel tumbled from her frozen fingers. She opened her mouth to warn, to plead, to …
They stopped at her feet, up-turned faces, smiles too wide, eyes full of metal.
“Look,” they growled, releasing the latches. A torrent of nothing poured out, swirling, devouring.
But at the bottom was a tiny speck of light.
Hope.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: “Your choice is simple,” she said in that proud and confident tone. “Stay here and start behaving or take your chances out there. And that suitcase is all you are allowed to take.”
“You really think I won’t be able to live without you?”
“So that’s your answer?” she snapped.
I picked up the suitcase and walked away without a backwards glance. Perhaps I should have told her that I switched out the contents a few hours ago and I had the cash and gold her grandfather had built up?
Nah. It’ll be a surprise when she looks for them.
Dupin says: “Frank, it’s there again.”
“Seriously? It’s been a couple of months. Are you sure it’s—”
“Exactly the same suitcase, as always. Same tag, even.”
“Nobody put it there?”
“Have they ever? It just shows up. Security camera scrambles for a few seconds, and it’s there.”
“You gonna get it?”
“You daft, Frank? It’ll just disappear from baggage claim or lockup. Besides, it’s supposed to rain, so it’ll serve them right.”
“Who is they?”
“Francis Helderberg. I did some digging in our archives and on Google.”
“And?”
“That train quit running forty years ago, and she died the same day.”
I always dread these kinds of calls. Unattended suitcase sitting out by the tracks. Maybe it’s just something someone forgot in the excitement of reunion, of joyous greetings, and they’re already on a frantic drive to retrieve it. Or maybe it’s something nefarious.
So you never know if you’re dealing with a prized possession or a menace. No matter how many signs you put up reminding passengers not to leave their bags unattended, no matter how many times you announce it, someone’s going to get distracted just long enough to forget, to hurry off with an old friend or long-lost relative, not even realizing the suitcase or duffel bag or briefcase is still sitting, waiting.
And if we treat it as a potential IED and destroy their irreplaceable heirloom, their irreplaceable artwork, their irreplaceable documents, we’re the ones who get treated like villains. Oh the screaming, the cussing, the tears, as if all their emotional overflow would somehow turn back time and restore their forgotten belongings to wholeness.
But if we were wrong, you know who they’d blame for everyone who gets killed or hurt when it goes kaboom. And these days, you can’t even use a robot to retrieve it and move it to a safe place. Too many of the baddies are set up to go off the moment they’re jostled.
Sometimes I just want to quit the whole business. The only thing that’s keeping me here is knowing that someone else would have to take my place if I leave.
Navig8r says: “That poor person!”
“For money, but not spirit. And probably not for long on money.”
“Huh?”
“Your uncle had it worse.”
“The rancher/state legislator? The Lieutenant Governor? The building contractor? They all died with net worths over a mil.”
“Eldest had it hardest. Left the farm with a cardboard suitcase and $5 to hitch across two states for a job where he could work through high school. B17 navigator in the war, and yes, rancher/state legislator.
This person has the gumption to leave their comfort zone to find work, and has already managed to earn enough for a train ticket.”
(True family history here.)
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