Short story--Packing Cases

Packing cases. All covered, and taped shut, and numbered. Her name and Indian address on it written in a bold, harsh blue.

She didn’t like the colour. It was too intrusive.

She fingered her name on the nearest carton absently. Her home of eighteen years looked unfamiliar and strange, invaded by the packing cases, and the loud-voiced packers, who were paid to rip her home apart. She paused to listen to the banging and hammering, and tearing, and the snipping of tape; the incessant groaning and creaking of furniture being emptied and taken apart. The carton marked ten had been her bed—before it had become a pile of flat boards, bound and marked. The case next to it was her study table—where she had first learned to read, and to write—and gone on to love doing both. It had been the most special place in the house for her—where she had lived many fantasies in the books she had read, and created many of her own with the magic of her pen. She stared at the awkwardly shaped crate, and traced with her toe, the depression on the carpet where it had lain for as long as she could remember.

The room looked naked to her eyes—so unlike her own beloved room. She looked at it, and then closed her eyes. She could see it then as it had once been; the light stealing through the curtains in playful beams, dancing upon her bed, the shelf with her beloved books in a cosy corner, her table just by the window…

Sudden tears stung the back of her eyes, and she admonished herself. ”There’s nothing to cry about…I always knew I would have to leave one day…” But it doesn’t make leaving any easier, she thought, silently. It doesn’t make it less hard to let go… She went to the window, stripped bare of the heavy curtains, almost too bright in the blazing desert afternoon. Saudi Arabia was a harsh place; summers were blazingly hot; winters were chilling. Staring out at the large looming buildings, the whizzing cars, the streetlights, and the shops, her eyes blurred with sudden tears. “It isn’t even a pretty sight”, she reflected, with a sudden urge to laugh. But it was dear to her—it was the sight she had always seen; it was the view from her window. “Not anymore…not ever again.” She sank down to the floor and hugged her knees, feeling lonely and lost.

Just then, one of the packers came in. She rose in angry confusion, blinking furiously. Then she strode out, after one look as he unscrewed the air conditioner from the wall. She rushed to the sitting room, then the other rooms one by one, finding none that were unoccupied by those strange, shouting men. Feeling irrationally angry and irritated, she went to the front door and opened it, then went to the adjacent flat and knocked softly. A lady opened the door, and smiled at her.

“Come in, dearie”, she said. “You must be tired of all that bustle and packing!”

“I am OK, Aunty.”

"Is it all set when you are to go?"

"I think the flight is tomorrow night."

"Shall I get you something to eat? Have lunch …"

She began in protest…but let it pass. It was no use anyway. The motherly lady was already going to the kitchen. She remembered practically living in this house—they were such good friends with their neighbours! They were like an extended family that she had learnt to love almost as much as her own. They were leaving them as well…"It's for the best…” she told herself. After all, she was going to their homeland…Going back home. Yet, right now, this felt like home…this flat with the memories of her childhood…the buildings, the desert that had become this huge city; the carefully pruned, artificial-looking trees; the black-and-white robed people, this whole atmosphere…A gilded cage, she had once called it; and it was…but it was a cage she loved, because she had never known anywhere else.

She smiled at Aunty, who had come in with the lunch, and they began to talk of the packing, the documents to be prepared, the plans they had made for the future…She had a strange feeling of being in a dream…as if she would wake up and find that it had all been unreal…that the flat was still furnished…that they were not going anywhere…

She went back to her flat after that. Her father had returned with the exit papers. They were leaving the next day. That night all their friends and relatives…their own private community would gather in the flat to bid them farewell…It was over…their self-imposed exile of nearly twenty two years. Her own whole life of eighteen years. Everything was changing…changed.

And in a day, she had changed too. Her childhood had been packed, and set aside…

The packing was almost complete. Most of the rooms were bare. Her voice echoed weirdly when she talked…there was a mournful tone to it. "It is the spirit of this home…mourning our leaving…" she thought to herself…and laughed. What fanciful thoughts!

The container of the ship that all this was to be sent in, was already waiting. The packing cases were carried away one by one and then, they were alone in the flat…an empty shell of what had been their home…

Waiting for the end…and then the beginning…