The Holiday Ended, the Suitcase Stayed Packed

Eleven at night, and the room still smells like the coach ride. She got back this afternoon, set the suitcase down in the corner, and hasn't touched it since. The light is off now. The suitcase is still there.

It isn't laziness. Unpacking is what officially ends the holiday — clothes back in the wardrobe, the last few days filed away somewhere in her head, and tomorrow morning becomes an ordinary morning again. The shirt has been hanging on the hook since evening. The alarm is already set. Only the zip has gone untouched. In the end she opens it, takes out half, and goes to bed.

The next day she opens the fridge and finds the plastic bags tied off with rubber bands — the particular knot only her mother ties. The fridge is full and the stove is cold, because nobody has cooked. Counting the containers, there's one more than there should be. Her mother didn't miscount. She knew her daughter would have days up here when she'd forget to eat, and packed that portion before she ever left home.

Thursday morning, traffic backed up from the top of the street. Five days of mail waiting, meetings already on the calendar. She's halfway to annoyed when she glances over: the bike beside her still has a bag from home strapped behind the seat, not yet carried inside. So does the one behind it. Every rider in this queue left a house somewhere less than twenty-four hours ago.

Morning traffic is heavy today. All of us just came from home.

Tết is five months out. It sounds far, but counted properly it's just a handful of workweeks with weekends in between. By then, will the suitcase get unpacked faster than it did this time — or slower?