A Handsome Suitcase

Characters: Me(nanny), Jamie(boy aged 7), Seth(also 7, twin brothers)

Setting: Riding in Chester(my orange character-laden car) on the way home from school

   I was driving up the street, almost to the boys' house, when I heard an exclamation of sad consternation.

Jamie: Aaaw, look! (He pointed to a cluster of overflowing dumpsters lining the street.) Someone threw a suitcase away! (He looked quite distressed.) Why would they do that?

Seth: (ever the practical one) Jamie, its probably broken. Right, Mary? (He looked to me to confirm his astute assertion.)

Me: Most likely it is broken. That's probably why whoever owned it put it in the trash.

Jamie: But its so handsome!

   To be honest, since I was driving, I hadn't actually seen the suitcase the twins so earnestly discussed. However, I must say that when I heard the word, "handsome," my interest peaked. I have seen some nice traveling devices in my time, but never heard

one deemed "handsome." This term so caught my attention, that an hour later, leaving work, my curiosity overcame common sense, and I drove out of my way back to the trash receptacles to see the famed piece of luggage.

   There it lay, perched in all its glory atop a load of rubbish. Its blue hard-shell top was askew, its hinges broken, and it was dented and scratched. Hardly the noteworthy heirloom Jamie thought it to be.

   As I put my automobile in gear and turned down the next street, thoughts of where the old luggage might have been and what it might have seen and experienced slipped in to keep me company: 

glimpes of Beijing; 

glittering water in the ports of Hong Kong; 

the grand cathedrals of Austria;

musty libraries in moor castles; 

jostling red buses in London; 

wafting smells from French pastry shops; 

silent sleds on a whited evening;

scorching sun of the deserts; 

rich emerald slopes of Ireland;

turbans swaying in colorful parade midst a sea of camels;

dogs howling their significance on a sleepless Haiti night;

low murmurs 'round orange and red campfires;

stiff grasses bowing homage to an ocean king;

smooth prairies stretching to infinity;

the railway, writing its signature across blue hills and long plains;

thin freshness of chill mountain air;

apartment in Paris ripe with noises of a cafe below;

   I pondered all the lovely places that lone rectangle had been. I sensed and felt the pull of an exciting life of mystery that I would never know. Almost, I envied its shiny wearied self for the siting of such grandeur.

"Ah," I said with a sigh. "It is  a handsome suitcase."