Looking through an old suitcase one always finds interesting things, that once brought happiness and sadness and that today, forgotten by all, seem to have no value. However, if you feel them, put them to your ear, they vibrate with their own life as if reborn, full of noises and sounds for those who want to hear and smell them. This happened to me on a day when, yearning for the memories of my childhood, I opened an old suitcase of my grandmother’s, saved for who knows how many years in loft of the stairway.
Putting the key into the worm-eaten lock it gave way, moaning like a virgin on being possessed. On opening the lid, dozens of sprites of different shapes and sizes, leaped out onto the floor, and ran in all directions, hiding behind the furniture and curtains. I was caught between shock and surprise, but recovered quickly, staying still, just watching them. As they gained confidence they abandoned their hiding places and approached me, looking at me with bulging eyes and feeling me with their little hands. I felt like Gulliver in Lilliput, but I was reacting as if ignoring them, rummaging through the contents of the suitcase. Then it seemed that the leader, being the oldest, pulled on my pants leg and in a bell-like voice said to me:
“What are you looking for in the past?”
“The reason for the present,” I answered.
“The present is the present.”
I became pensive and closed the suitcase. In there were my grandmother’s things, but the goblins also got free and accompany everywhere all the time. Only I am the only one who sees and feels them. In old suitcases one always finds interesting things.
September 17, 2010
