The Suitcase

(This was based on a exercise of one sentence – to just keep writing, don’t use periods, just keep going and going.)

She reached up for the suitcase, the old brown one, and gave a tentative tug, but when she felt it stick, she hesitated just a second, then gave a sharp yank which brought it out of the closet on the fly, along with the box which had been sitting on top of it, the shoe box with the loose lid which now flew past her ear and landed with a thump and a whole assortment of sounds as the contents sprawled out of the box and all over the floor as she muttered oh shoot and set down the suitcase and turned to survey the mess but after a quick look decided that since it was all at the foot of the bed and not in her way at eth moment she would just leave it be, so with a sigh and shrug of her shoulders and a grimace of her face she picked up the suitcase, laid it on the bed, opened it and then turned to her dresser, opening the drawers one by one, quickly assessing what she wanted, dumping it in the suitcase, then turning to the closet and quickly picking out the few items she thought she would need she started to close the suitcase when she glanced over at the mishmash of stuff that had dumped out of the box and she noticed the little floral ceramic piece that he had won for her at the mid-way the summer they had fallen in love and she reached down to pick it up and found herself suddenly remembering with a sharp poignancy how that first summer had been and how utterly glorious and wonderful the world had been and how she had loved him like she hadn’t even known possible and as all the memories and feelings flooded in she suddenly knew that there was still hope no matter how awful things seemed at the moment and that she wouldn’t be leaving after all.

Here’s the edited version:

She reached up for the suitcase, the old brown one, and gave a tentative tug. But when she felt it stick, she hesitated just a second, then gave a sharp yank which brought it out of the closet on the fly, along with the box which had been sitting on top of it.

The shoe box with the loose lid now flew past her ear and landed with a thump and a whole assortment of sounds as the contents sprawled out of the box and all over the floor.

She muttered, “Oh shoot!” and set down the suitcase and turned to survey the mess. But after a quick look she decided that since it was all at the foot of the bed and not in her way at the moment she would just leave it be.

So with a sigh and shrug of her shoulders and a grimace of her face she picked up the suitcase, laid it on the bed, and opened it. Then she turned to her dresser, opening the drawers one by one, quickly assessing what she wanted, and dumping it in the suitcase. Then she turned to the closet and quickly picked out the few items she thought she would need.

She started to close the suitcase when she glanced over at the mishmash of stuff that had dumped out of the box. That’s when she noticed the little floral ceramic piece that he had won for her at the mid-way the summer they had fallen in love. She reached down to pick it up and found herself suddenly remembering with a sharp poignancy how that first summer had been, how utterly glorious and wonderful the world had been and how she had loved him like she hadn’t even known possible.

As all the memories and feelings flooded in she suddenly knew that there was still hope no matter how awful things seemed at the moment and that she wouldn’t be leaving after all.

© 2000, Evelyn Grace Marinoski