Big Blue

It was like any other Friday night for Magda Sheridan: a pair of red heels, straight-leg jeans, a crisp, slicked-back ponytail, and exactly two and a half glasses of a perfectly aged Pinot Noir. Like clockwork, Magda walked straight to the door of a party she wasn’t invited to, flashed her calm eyes and a smile at the bouncer, and went right inside. Everybody's attention glued to her and she loved it. She spent the night laughing with strangers and dancing ‘til her feet ached. Magda went to sleep that night with a smile plastered on her face, overjoyed to simply be alive.

The next morning, Magda woke to the agitating sound of her phone ringing. With eyes still crusted shut, she answered the phone to find nobody on the other end. How bizarre, she thought for half a second before falling right back to sleep. A terrible, anxious feeling formed in her stomach, so she rolled over and opened her eyes. “Ah!” she shouted, startled by the sight of a big blue suitcase at her bedside. Now wide awake, she glanced around her room apprehensively, waiting for someone to pop out of her closet and A) kill her, or B) explain the joke she clearly didn’t get. Magda rubbed her eyes, swiftly pulled the bed sheets off her body, and got up. She turned the suitcase on its side and anxiously unzipped the bag. To her surprise, the suitcase was empty. Did I put this here last night? She wondered. No, I couldn’t have. I’ve never seen this before. It was different than any of the luggage she had previously owned; it was misshapen, bulky, and awkward.

Madga rezipped the foreign object and rolled it to the dumpsters outside her apartment complex, tossing it into the bin just as the garbage truck arrived. Trying to ignore the troubling feeling that loomed over her, Magda continued with her routine like usual: two sunny-side-up eggs for breakfast and a walk to the local cafe for an iced vanilla latte. When she returned home, Magda was horror-stricken to find the suitcase waiting in her bedroom. This has to be a nightmare. Yes, that’s it, I’m still asleep! She ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and took an ice-cold shower to wake herself up. When she came out of the bathroom, there it was again. She huffed and puffed at the suitcase, yelling, “I don’t have time for this!” Her right hand reached for the bag, and her left went for the lighter on her nightstand. Moments later, she stood in the middle of her quiet street, watching the fire she had started, which had turned the suitcase into ashes. When the burning concluded, she let out a big sigh of relief and walked back inside. There it was again, the Big Blue, good as new. After several days of similar occurrences, Magda realized that no matter what she tried, the suitcase always returned to her.

Magda decided she would continue her life as normal, though the suitcase unfailingly followed her everywhere. She tried to outrun it, drive away from it, and even took an airplane to test its limits. It always showed up. Passersby on the street would scream as the bag followed behind her, so eventually, Magda grabbed the handle and rolled it herself to avoid the unwanted attention. Each day, she found herself increasingly furious with the circumstances, and much like the suitcase, her anger followed her into situations it didn't need to. Magda would snap at the barista who got her drink order wrong, honk at the old woman who was crossing the street too slowly, and tell the restaurant waiter he was a waste of space when she found a hair in her lunch.

After approximately six weeks of trying to ignore the four-wheeled object that followed her relentlessly, she realized she couldn’t fight the truth any longer; it had disrupted her internal peace, wrecked her sanity, and changed her entire being. The almost-finished scarf she used to knit on every day now had cobwebs on it. The pizza in the fridge grew a fuzzy black and grey mold. Magda was dropped from the pottery class she loved so dearly due to her lack of attendance. Her phone was filled with unreturned calls from her family and friends. She rarely left her apartment, and when she did, she wore baggy clothes, a hat, and sunglasses as if she were a celebrity undercover. No matter how many hours she slept, waking up each day felt exhausting because the thought of the suitcase following her around all day was simply too great to handle. Slowly, then all at once, Magda had become a shell of herself.

One random Tuesday, she finally willed herself to the laundry mat when the stenchy, untouched laundry in her bin started to reek into the hallway of her complex; her neighbor banged on the door until she agreed to wash it. She sat in silence, watching the machines go in circles. While she waited for her delicates to finish drying, an elderly woman sat down beside her. Magda quickly noticed that the woman was staring at her.

“Yes, I know, it’s bizarre.” Magda sighed as she frustratingly motioned to the suitcase.

“Huh?” The older woman raised her eyebrows.

“This wretched suitcase. It’s hideous and embarrassing, I already know. You don’t need to stare.”

The elderly woman chuckled at Magda.

“Sweetheart. I was admiring your beauty. I was wondering why someone so beautiful was looking so miserable and insecure. I didn’t even notice the bag.”

“Oh,” Magda whispered.

“And you know, honey, everybody's got a bag. Some people leave ‘em at home, but most carry them around. We’re all just too focused on our own to notice anyone else's."

Magda half-laughed. Yeah, right, she thought, but when Magda walked outside, it was like a switch flipped inside her head. The teenage boy standing on the corner was dragging around a massive orange duffel bag. The woman coming off the bus carried two full-sized suitcases and a carry-on. The handsome couple leaving the supermarket had their hands intertwined with a small tote bag between them. After ten long months, this was the first time Magda realized she wasn’t alone. It didn’t happen overnight, but from then on, she treated the suitcase like a friend, even calling it by its name: Big Blue.

Magda started small. She purposefully took Big Blue to her appointments, politely declining when the receptionist at the doctor's office asked if she wanted them to hang on to her luggage during her visit. When she went to the pool, she always grabbed an extra towel for Blue. She moved with pride instead of shame, and eventually her confidence and comfort grew. She went to Disneyland for her 28th birthday and took Big Blue on all the rides. They both agreed that Space Mountain was their favorite. On airplanes, she would pay for an extra seat just to put Big Blue in. “Ma’am, you need to check that bag. That’s greater than the carry-on measurements,” the flight attendants would say. “Oh no,” Madga laughed and waved it off, “It has its own seat,” she smiled as she buckled it in.

When Magda finally started to see her friends again, they initially weren’t sure how to interact with the bag. They learned to simply listen when she talked about it and happily made space for Big Blue in all their plans; they were just glad to have Magda around again. She even started dating, too. Most men she dated couldn’t get past the bag; they felt it was too much. That is, until Alexander came along. Alexander loved Magda in a way she had never known before. It was as if her journal entries that daydreamed about her future partner grew legs and came to life. At their first anniversary dinner, Big Blue wouldn’t fit under the table. The waiter kept tripping on it when he passed by. Magda shook her head, with tears in her eyes and grave embarrassment in her voice she said, “I’m so sorry about this. I don’t know what’s going on today. I haven’t been this emotional about Blue in a long time. I really didn’t want it to affect our anniversary.” Alexander reached for Magda’s hand across the table. “That’s okay, honey. You can cry if you need to. Blue hasn’t ever bothered me. That’s no different today.”

After what felt like ages, Magda was experiencing a happy life again. She would never be the same as she was before, but she was a new version of herself that she liked all the same. A year and a half after Blue first appeared, Magda left the house for drinks with a friend, and Blue didn’t follow. She discovered she didn’t have to carry it around all the time. Now and then, though, she would tend to Big Blue by taking it out with her for an ice cream at their favorite spot, reflecting on her complex love for the bag and the way it changed her.