The Pullman’s Peril (A Story from the Life and Times of a Suitcase)

Photo by Nick Fewings

The Pullman was jerked up from the corner.

“Oh, good God! What’s this? I was happy living in my peaceful place in the attic. I didn’t even mind the cobwebs. So now what? Nobody seems to want me unless there’s a big trip coming up, and I’m getting too old for that. I’ll likely be thrown around, shoved, and kicked, and will feel smothered until we stop if we’re going by plane. I could be thrown atop a berth in a train car, which wouldn’t be so bad. But I hope to God this won’t be a road trip. I’ll be dragged in and out, opened and closed a dozen times, getting no rest whatsoever, and I’ll likely even land on some hard, sharp rocks covering some parking lot to a motel or at a campground. I really hate that.”

The man who snatched me up proceeded to drag me out of the dusty upper floor, down the stairs, thump after thump.

“Can’t people be a little more careful?” I whined, wondering where we’d be going this time.

That query was halted because instead of being thrown onto the bed and filled, as expected, I was thrown into the back of a vehicle that had a liftback instead of a dark trunk.

“Thank goodness for that small favor,” I muttered as the engine began to purr. “But that’s odd. I wonder why we’d travel with me empty?”

We hadn’t gone too far when the vehicle pulled into a dark space…perhaps a garage? I thought as the surrounding light grew dim when we drove in and then went dark when I heard the big door to the place go shut.

Then I was suddenly blinded by bright lights. “What the hell?”

This was a spooky situation like I had never encountered before, and I didn’t know whether to feel excited to have a new adventure or be afraid for my leather hide.

I heard voices as the back door to the vehicle was lifted. I was jerked forward, my clasps unsnapped, and my top lifted. But when one side was thrown back to lean against the seat behind me, instead of being laid spread out to expose my full interior, like always, I began to suspect a problem. This was not my usual handler. But that was just my gut feeling.

I chuckled to myself. “I can be pretty funny when I want to be,” I snickered, “because I know full well that I have no ‘guts’ with which to feel anything.” And yet, something didn’t seem right. I began to notice that there were four hands filling my interior instead of two. Mmmmm.

Photo by Peter Herrmann

I was starting to feel stuffed. The items that were laid carefully inside me were packages filled with something unknown to me. They were box-like, without cardboard on the outside, wrapped in some kind of plastic instead. It was beginning to smell, too. By the time I was full, and my lid was able to close over the over-filled bottom, I was feeling woozy. When the lid clicked shut, my head began to spin.

I kept wondering what the green stuff was that had been packed. One of the voices I’d heard talking said something about making sure my handler got the money. Was I to be sold or given away? Is that why I was pulled from storage after so many years of sitting in an attic collecting dust? Was I worth a lot of money, or was it just my new contents that were costly? Would I be discarded once I was empty? Oh, woe is me, so many worries. I’m not ready to be cast aside just yet,I realized, as we drove back into sunlight.

But then I began to giggle for no reason. My wooziness had turned into giddiness. I saw nothing funny about my situation, but there came another giggle. I didn’t seem to care about anything and felt I was in some kind of La La Land. Oh boy! I kept giggling and then I started singing my favorite traveling song, “I’m gonna take a sentimental journey,” that my handler used to sing.

The car slowed.

“What the fuck?” the voice in front said. “I thought I heard my dad. That’s weird,” he muttered to himself.

When the car reaccelerated, I heard the tires hum. I began to hum with them, humming the song I’d just been singing. But then I felt sad. My old handler, who’d sung that song to me all those years ago, had gone to handler heaven, and his son didn’t seem to know any travelin’ songs to sing.

“Whoa,” I muttered softly, “I’m really feeling outside myself. Maybe I’d better sleep; I’m feeling a bit unhinged.”

The sound of the tires lulled me into an unconscious state with dreams about the old days, the old travels, about the old roadside motels we used to stay in that were sparse in color and personality, but clean. I felt happy.

My old handler loved me because he wiped my surface with a special cloth and then buffed my sides after every trip. I gleamed and looked like new. My brass hardware was always shiny from being polished.

I had heard him tell someone that he purchased me in Italy after the war. I vaguely remember that time, of hearing a man whistling a tune while he worked on me. When he put me in a window, I was spotted by my handler, who excitedly came in and paid for me. He walked outside with me in hand.

The car soon stopped, and I opened my eyes. When the back door lifted, one gruff voice said, “Gimme the bag. Here’s yours.”

My heart sank; I was going away.

My driver hesitated and said, “Keep your bag. This was my father’s, and I’ve had a sentimental moment. I’m taking it back home with me.”

Photo by Mantas Hesthaven