Put Yourself Into This Suitcase

My carry-on has 33 pockets, pouches, compartments, or chambers. A pocket has a zipper, a pouch has an elastic lip, a compartment is a space not enclosed by either of those things but something different, and a chamber is a main area that is available immediately upon opening the suitcase.

There are two chambers, one on each half.

There is one compartment in the form of a small lockable box built into the suitcase’s inner lining and concealed by a clever set of snaps, and the instructions stated that it’s meant for valuables, which apparently often come in elongated forms like necklaces and watches, but in my case … well, we’ll get to that.

There are 26 pouches. These vary in size from toothbrush to almost chamber sized, and they are positioned all over the linings of the chamber walls and sometimes even within the outer pockets. The proliferation of pouches is the main selling point of the suitcase.

The outer “front,” when the suitcase is all closed up, has four pockets. The biggest one is almost a chamber, but it’s on the outside of the suitcase and closed with a zipper, so it is a pocket. On top of that pocket are three more pockets of varying height: small, medium, large. These are lined up in increasing size from top to bottom. The large is the size of a tablet — at least in the year in which this suitcase was manufactured, as tablet sizes are fickle. The medium is the height of a sideways phone and there is room for two of them. The small has no obvious purpose, but I suppose it could fit tissues or carefully folded socks or, oh, earphones?

As a whole, this is a carry-on, so it occupies about as much physical space as my two legs from the crotch down, if I stand with my legs very close together and I’m not wearing shoes.

Now for the puzzle. I have been ordered to pack myself into it. There are no rules or clarifications, but it is implied that anything I cannot fit will be left behind permanently. “Put yourself into this suitcase,” the stationery reads. And it is signed by my god. And it has gilded edges and the logo of my god’s visage at the top to validate its authenticity. As with all things related to my god, I am to have faith that this suitcase will be transported, with me in it. Or perhaps not? Is the suitcase mine to transport, and thus I must leave my locomotive parts outside to do this work? “Yourself,” the memo says. That seems all-inclusive.

Many scholars in my faith like to parse each word and investigate its various translations for hidden connotations and deeper metaphorical meanings. I prefer to take my god’s words at face value, at a glance, like an e-mail would be. I know my god to be a busy god, and I don’t suspect even this omniscience to put layers of meaning into every instruction. “Don’t kill,” my god said, so I did not kill. Now I am here, having apparently passed this test and the many other tersely-worded ones that others spent a lifetime agonizing over and apologizing for.

I am here in my apartment with a carry-on that has 33 places in which to put things and, obviously, “myself.”

I begin with my ears, because my god does not speak to me that way. They fit neatly in the small outer pocket, along with my nose — my god has no scent — and, with some amount of light stuffing, my hair.

I reserve the other two outer pockets for later, for the parts of myself that may need to be unpacked first, or may need to be shown to gate agents at my god’s airport.

The chambers should obviously be for my largest parts — legs on one side, torso on the other — but it is here that I run into my first problem. I need my torso to use my arms, and I need my arms to pack. And close the suitcase. I decide to put these parts last and trust in my god to provide; I procrastinate.

I decide that my feet should come off and, in a moment of inspiration, remove my toes to put them into various small pouches — left foot’s toes in one pouch, right foot’s toes in another, to ease in potential reassembly. This should prevent jostling damage and bone breakage. My legs are placed in one chamber bent at the knees to form a rectangular shape and my toe-less feet are tucked into the middle, with room left over my head to be cradled in the relative safety of my fleshy appendages.

My eyes, fear not, I have already removed and secured to my thumbs by means of winding the optical cords.

If I use the other inner chamber for my torso and the largest outer pocket for my arms, that leaves 24 pouches and the medium and large pockets for whatever’s left. One pouch for the eyes, obviously. Tiny pouches, naturally, one for each. So now 22 pouches are open.

I place my genitals in the valuables compartment and lock them up tight. On a whim, I include the inner workings, because there’s room. My god may require my fertility.

My self has now been reduced to a torso, hips-inclusive, and arms and eyeballs. There’s room. Not too much, for if you overfill all the pouches and pockets, you risk squeezing and damaging the main goods. My mind, which is safely ensconced in my head, begins to regret putting my hair in the small pocket. It’s clearly inessential, and could have been used as packaging material to buffer delicate things from sharp things, but I decide it’s no use going backward. I am not my own to reassemble. The instructions do not extend that far into the future. My job is to “put,” simply put.

With my legs already stored, my mobility is severely hampered. I can’t scamper around the apartment gathering photographs and mementos. And I won’t need my keys, as I assume this is a one-way journey, though I may need my wallet for identification purposes. It’s within torso’s reach in the pants I discarded to the floor before I began. I fish out my wallet and slip it into the middle pocket on the outside for easy access.

I decide to leave the many pouches empty. They feel like a test. Will I fill them with frivolities uncalled for in the instructions? Besides, empty pouches formed a sort of bubble wrap of material for the outer lining, which made me feel safe. I was about to store my eyeballs and tackle the tricky torso-arm problem when I remembered my soul.

I carefully pulled it free and secured it in the large outer pocket. I wished suddenly I knew what it smelled like, but my nose was already zipped away. It looked like nothing except that it was obvious. Souls are difficult to describe, especially when the connection between your eyes and brain is tenuous at best, like shoddy Bluetooth.

Soul secured, I tucked my eyes into their pouch fell backward into the empty chamber. Blind but still aware of the contours of the suitcase, thanks to the latent mysterious awareness of my soul, I allowed my arms to fall free, then fumbled with their touch until I managed to flip the suitcase closed and secure its big plastic buckles.

Then, using my fingers to crawl inside and flip around, each arm, one at a time, entered the biggest outer pocket, the one underneath the others, and positioned itself so that the fingers could zip it closed from the inside, one zipper per side, meeting at the top with just the smallest inch to spare.

And then I prayed.

**

Two or three days later — the time span gauged by the thirst in my throat and hunger in my soul — I realized that my god had abandoned me. Or, to use the term of art, forsaken me. I had felt no jostles to indicate that anything had hustled me into a cab and taken me to an airport, nor had my stomach detected the tell-tale lurch of my suitcase being bodily ascended into heaven. I was, as best I could tell, still flat on my apartment floor amid the heap of my final outfit.

This was how the police found me, or at least, found the suitcase. There was, according to my ears, a thorough search of the apartment before anyone attempted to lift the suitcase, which was quite heavy for a carry-on and took a nameless policeman some surprised grunting and cursing to stand up. Naturally, they opened the suitcase to see what had filled it so.

Now that the suitcase was on its wheels, opening it meant the content of the chambers simply tumbled out. My torso, my legs, my blunted feet, and my senseless head all spilled out on to the floor. My ears, still in the small outer pocket, heard exclamations of horror, wonder, and anger. Mostly anger. Policemen tend to develop an instinctual annoyance at the unusual, as unusual things resist cataloging in mandatory paperwork.

Other pouches and pockets were searched, and out came my arms and nose and ears and hair and wallet and toes. They somehow missed my eyes. They never discovered my private and secured genitals. And they left my soul where it was after a cursory probing of it.

I expected them to reassemble me. It’s what I would have done, this familiar collection of puzzle pieces creating an irresistible desire to put together. But policemen are different. Agencies were radioed and photographs were taken. I was spread out on the dirty floor. I imagine they marked my parts with little yellow tags with numbers on them, though that was conjecture because my eyes were now all alone inside the suitcase’s lining.

A Woman-In-Charge arrived. “What’s all this?” she asked. No explanations were returned, save for maybe a shrug or a look of bewilderment.

The Woman-In-Charge ordered that I brought to “the lab” and when an officer started repacking me into the suitcase she berated him and commanded that each part be sealed in its own plastic for minimal contamination. I was grateful for her care, but concerned that perhaps my toes weren’t being properly labeled for left- or right-footedness. I had no way of checking their work. The suitcase was also dragged along, according to my ears and soul. And genitals, when we descended the bumpy staircase, which hurt a lot.

The next period is a blur. They did eventually find my eyes and genitals, but not my soul. Each part of me was studied under a microscope, then on a metal tray by a medical examiner. I am grateful to the medical examiner, as they were the ones who finally suggested reassembly. This was done more or less correctly, and I was pronounced dead. They had my information already because of my wallet, and I imagine my driver’s license photo aided in putting my hair back on properly.

I don’t know what happened to my body after that. My soul, still zipped into its pouch, was stored in an evidence locker, where it resides today, and from whence this communication emanates, no longer a prayer but an accounting to my god. I need my god to know the treatments and tortures I have endured. I need to understand why I had to pack myself into this suitcase, and what the purpose of this trip could have been.

I need to know why I am so bloodless and how it was so easy to pull myself apart for my god’s glory.

And I need to be free of this pocket. My soul is withering. Without a body to inhabit, it is becoming uncomfortably entangled in the fibers of the suitcase. I dread eternity as a sentient carry-on. I shudder at the prospect of its plastic shells and fibers decomposing so slowly that I am witness to the end of all time. I despair that my god cannot find me, as I clearly missed my flight.

But I do abide. I have put myself into this suitcase. It was my god’s final commandment. My purpose is only to await the next one.