This excerpt was part of a writing prompt from The Narrative Method.
PROMPT: [Photo of a battered old suitcase] Why did he have to leave?
Each time it is the same. Brown-battered and beat up, his ancient suitcase heavier than before, the metal and leather handle careworn in his grip. He is comforted by the handle. It remains consistent; comfortable, something that always feels the same. It fits into a groove in his palm that did not exist before, whenever before was. It fits its purpose:
To Carry.
Every time it feels like the same story. The way the reel would flit in the projector before repeating on an endless loop. Like 100 variations of the same memory. Or those pictures they have for children: Can you spot the difference? The photos are almost the same but something is off. He is like this, always the same – black and white, sepia toned, technicolor, changed only slightly by the filters they use nowadays. And then one day he realized he is the difference; he is the wrong thing. Out of place. He doesn’t belong.
It doesn’t matter.
On this instance the ground is wet with rain. It is spring. The sky is swollen gray and he can almost hear the flowers budding, the new blades of grass creeping up from the soft earth. He smells mud, the overwhelming mucky scent of worms.
He always dreads the act. The telling of it: like a hollow voice coming out of a tin box. I’ll be going now. Their stricken faces, the haunted eyes. They will remember this forever, it will destroy them or move them towards something luminous; sometimes both. He remembers fragments of the rooms, the dates, the child’s hand in his own, already reaching for the comfort of his suitcase. A woman or a man or a someone who is always crying. There is a shattering sound, a breaking that can’t be fixed.
But then: relief. Once the door closes behind him, he stands on the precipice of something new. His suitcase is always heavier than before, anchoring him. Sometimes he is wearing boots and it’s winter, his breath coming out of him in cold, empty puffs. Sometimes it’s so humid the air balloons around him, crackling with heat. There is the cacophony of traffic, of people and carriages or cars; or there is the silence of a darkened street, a desert road, a forest. Sometimes it is night. He likes the mornings best, when the sun is just beginning to crest over the horizon. Once, he stood on a mountain, the wind nothing to the howling sounds of the woman he left behind in the hut.
The only constant continual is his suitcase, and the handle that feels like an extension of himself. He is consoled by it. It is heavy but he knows he must carry it – everything that he has done or will do. Everyone he has loved and left. It is unbearable, sometimes, but he settles into the good pain like a comfort.
Sighing deeply, with that old blend of relief and regret, he takes one step forward. He takes another step, and with it he blocks out the world behind him. It’s quiet now. He does not look back.
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