the samsonite

I just sat there, among the boxes and the Samsonite. The big suitcase was lying on the floor, opened wide like a big wound, with all the ugliness coming out of its opening. The ugliness, as it turned out, was comprised of my belongings - the precious and private property that I had dragged along halfway across the world. Now they just lied there, in a puddle of mess. I kept postponing putting them properly inside the drawers: one for the socks and the briefs, one for the shirts and the jeans, and so on.

You'd have thought I'd been busy. I might need to use that excuse if someone entered my apartment and witnessed the condition I was living in. Probably saying that would give me some sort of leverage from being accused of being a slob.

Yet I was not busy. In fact, I had too much spare time on my hands that I didn't know what to do with it. So I opened my laptop, connected to the internet, and activated my Messenger. Then a familiar "beep" greeted me.

"You've been away for a long time. I missed our chats," he typed.

I stared at the Messenger window for a long time. Not knowing how to respond. We were never meant for each other - he had a partner and I... well, things were complicated. All I could type was a "Hey". Had it been an audio conversation, he would've noticed how meek it was. The meekness didn't stay too long, and as he sent me a cyber kiss (with that stupid little puckering emoticon), I blushed and swooned.

Then the conversation went flowing, as smooth as the bubbling chilled Perrier that went through my lips, soaked my teeth, my gums, my tongue and the ceiling of my mouth, and as it reached my throat, it let gravity took care of it and fell into the abyss where my intestines were waiting, ready to be showered by the liquid.

The moment he said he needed to go have some lunch marked the beginning of the longest, coldest, most awful one hour in my life. I huffed, puffed, and paced around the room, all the while checking my computer, waiting for him. As I was about to give up, I heard a soft "beep": he was back.

"Hi. Sorry for taking too long, I had lunch with my parents," he said.

"Wow, that's sweet! What did you guys talk about?" I asked with genuine curiosity.

"Oh, not much. Just ordinary things," he answered. I cringed at the thought of eating with my own parents and how the members of my family had drifted far apart from each other. A tinge of jealousy sparked in my heart.

"My boss is gone, and I have tons of things that I really need to work on before the day ends, but I'd rather be chatting with you," he confided.

I looked away from the monitor and my eye caught the sight of the open suitcase. Perhaps the sight was not less ugly than my own wound that this person had opened when he said he already had a partner. "Well, let's chat for a while," I suggested, lying to him and to myself. I wanted to chat with you forever.

The topics we chose ranged from the dying American Empire to thieving scumbags, but I wasn't prepared when he asked me what I wanted in a relationship. In a well-thought-of answer that was a strategy to make him feel sorry with his current status, I said, "I wish to settle down and have a long-term monogamous relationship."

He took the blow and I sensed his budding melancholy.

"I'm sorry I hadn't met you way before this," was his reply. I smiled, a triumphant smile, perhaps, but it felt more like losing than winning.

"It's late here. I need to sleep and you have to finish your work," I said, trying to put an end to this little moonlighting that would no doubt spark endless fantasies influenced by Disney and Lucas Entertainment movies.

"I know... Well, sleep tight, Princess..." he said.

"I can't believe you just called me that," I replied.

"It's because you're very precious to me, one in a billion."

I sensed my heart skipping a beat, and as he sent another kissy-face emoticon, I typed, "I'll see you, my Knight," and closed the lid of my laptop, putting it into hibernation mode. I shut my eyes and smiled, feeling way, way up in the sky. The first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes again was the Samsonite, lying there with my clothes and things inside it like a big puddle of mess.

Then I remembered the wound he had inflicted upon me and I came crashing down to the ground into a million of pieces.