Simple curiosity. That was all it took to change my world.
My life changed with a black briefcase one spring evening. It had a 1960s design, a perfect rectangle made of black leather with a number-combination lock, still in pristine condition. It was the fifth and last piece of luggage I had purchased earlier that day at the lost luggage auction—and the most expensive piece. Unless I was really lucky, I might make enough for a week’s groceries from all this. At some point, I knew that I had to find a new job, but lucky for me, retail jobs were a dime a dozen right now. If you were willing to take late-night shifts at least. Still, that was a concern for future me.
Luggage like this always left me wondering about its story. The smell of the leather, the faintest hint as I held it to my nose, told me it was probably genuine. Maybe it was a hipster throwback, a handmade piece for people with more money than sense, but something told me it was the real deal. A genuine 1960s briefcase. That raised a number of questions: Was it an old purchase, set aside and never used till recently? Perhaps given to a new graduate, a present to commemorate their graduation? Did someone buy it at a thrift store, a discarded piece of luggage that wasn’t wanted or needed till it was unceremoniously lost and abandoned again? That was, after all, how it had come into my possession. The airport auctioned off uncollected lost luggage every sixty days after it entered the system.
I sat silently for a time as I ran my hands along the briefcase and made up stories about its former owner, the briefcase, and what I might find within. Small stories, daydreams of the kinds of things I’d find inside—a laptop, a journal, maybe a calculator for an accountant. Business cards, of course. It was a briefcase. I took my time because this was half the fun of buying lost luggage—the stories I got to make up before the inevitable disappointment of reality. And while I thought, I ran my fingers along the numerical lock and attempted to open the case.
Click.
Four-six-seven. I idly noted the number that worked before I continued my attempts on the opposite side. It took another two minutes, an impatient two minutes as I found myself suddenly anxious to see what I had bought. When the click came, I held my breath for a second before I finally opened the briefcase to see my prize.
A leather journal, a single, expensive-looking fountain pen, and a capped bottle of ink snuggly fit into an inkwell dominated one side of the briefcase. On the other side, a series of nine small boxes with carved runes on top of them sat in what had to be a custom-made enclosure. I frowned as I traced the runes, never having seen anything like them before. Not that I was any expert, mind you, but they sure were pretty. On the underside of the top of the briefcase was a simple, silver-lined mirror that reflected my image to me.
Wavy brown hair that was about two weeks overdue for a haircut, slanted brown eyes that I had been told were my best feature and thin lips reflected back at me. I rubbed my chin, realizing I had forgotten to shave again and grown a sparse, stubbly goatee. It was a bad habit, but shaving was never a priority when you only had to do it every few weeks. Just another gift of being ethnically southern Chinese. At twenty-eight, I was glad I’d finally gotten out of the “baby face” period of my life, even if I was still occasionally mocked for looking like I was in my early twenties. That was okay, considering some of those same mockers were already losing their hair.
Initial perusal over, I began the process of stripping the briefcase. I started with the book first and found, to my surprise, it was empty. Nothing was on the front page or any of the succeeding pages. It had very nice binding though and high-quality leather. I’d probably make a few dollars selling it online. The fountain pen was an old dip-and-write type, might have been worth something to a collector. I capped the pen and put it away carefully. The ink I pulled out and set aside with the rest of the junk. No money in reselling used ink.
Lastly, I started opening the boxes. And that’s when things started getting weird. The first box held scales; the second, a series of dead beetles; the third, feathers from a single type of bird; and the fourth, old, dark earth. After the second box, I grabbed the garbage and started tossing contents into it immediately. Perhaps this had been owned by a taxidermist? Or a naturalist?
“Oww!” I howled and shook my hand. When I had touched the fifth box, what must have been the accumulated static charge of living in a basement apartment had shocked me. It had never been that bad before, but I made a mental note to get a humidifier… when I had the money.
Gingerly, I touched the box and, finding the charge gone, I opened it, ready to toss its contents away. Instead, I found a simple signet ring made of a dark metal. Or alloy of metals. I frowned as I plucked the ring out and rubbed at it to clean it up, curious to see what it was made of.
As I said, curiosity changed my life.
