Two Gray Suitcases

Two Gray Suitcases is a funny, tender romance about two strangers who learn who the other is by going through their luggage. On a rainy April night at…

I. The Carousel

There are, in the world, perhaps four million identical gray hard-shell suitcases, and on a wet Monday night in April, two of them went around carousel six at Edinburgh Airport in perfect, innocent formation. Elif Demir saw hers first. She had been standing at the belt for forty minutes, in a damp coat, with a throbbing headache and a laptop bag cutting into her shoulder, and when the gray case came sliding down the chute with its familiar scuff on one corner and its faded red ribbon tied around the handle, she could have wept with gratitude. She hauled it off the belt. She dragged it toward the exit. She did not notice, in the gloom of the arrivals hall, that the ribbon was a slightly different red. Twelve feet away, a tall man in a mud-stained fleece and a green knitted hat pulled a second gray case off the belt, glanced at the red ribbon he had tied to the handle that morning in Amsterdam, and strode toward the taxis. He was exhausted. He had been awake for twenty-nine hours. He had a long drive ahead, to a cold hut in the Cairngorms, and he did not, at eleven at night, have the energy to read a luggage tag. The two of them passed each other at the glass doors, close enough to touch. Elif, rummaging for her ticket, glanced up. He glanced down. A flicker of something crossed his tired face: not recognition, because there was nothing to recognize, but the small, startled, wordless attention of one stranger noticing another in a crowd. His eyes were dark and kind, with deep lines at the corners. She noticed that he was holding the door open for her, and that he did it without being asked. "Thanks," said Elif. "No bother," said the man, in a voice that was pure Aberdeen with something older underneath it. She went out into the rain. He went out into it, too, in the opposite direction. And the two gray suitcases, each in the wrong hand, rolled off into the dark, one toward a hotel in the center of the city, the other toward a hundred miles of empty Highland road. Neither of them looked back.

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Quick answers about Two Gray Suitcases

What is Two Gray Suitcases about?

Two Gray Suitcases is a funny, tender romance about two strangers who learn who the other is by going through their luggage. On a rainy April night at…

Is Two Gray Suitcases free to read?

Yes. Every story on RapidTale is free to read in the browser, with no sign-up and nothing to install.

How long does it take to read?

This story runs 8 chapters — most readers finish in one sitting, and you can stop and return to any chapter using the contents list.

Who wrote it?

Nimra Khan — original fiction published on RapidTale.