The Baggage Handler

by David Rawlings

  Gillian sank back into the sofa as the gravity of the Baggage Handler’s revelation fell on her. He was right. She had come to measure her life by what she didn’t have. What she wasn’t. Who she wasn’t. “Who are you? Even though you’re in a Baggage Services cap and overalls, you don’t work for the airline, do you? Are you some kind of guardian angel?”

  “It’s perhaps best if you just think of me as the Baggage Handler. I help people with their baggage—those who want to be helped, anyway!” A sadness filled his eyes. “Not everyone wants to be helped.”

  “Why don’t people want to be helped?”

  The Baggage Handler stared past Gillian, the sadness now flickering across his face. He gave a deep sigh. “Because dealing with baggage is hard. It requires effort or swallowing pride. Because some people are so used to carrying their baggage they don’t think they can exist without it. Because some people say they need time to deal with it, but that time never arrives. But overall, for most people, it’s because carrying baggage is just easier, despite the weight.”

  Gillian looked at the mirror facedown on her cocktail dress. “That’s just sad.”

  “It’s also quite normal. In fact, you’re doing it right now.”

  Gillian shot a rapid-fire upward glance at him. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve talked for five minutes, but you haven’t yet asked to be helped. You want to know about everything around your baggage, but you haven’t asked how you can deal with it.”

  Gillian folded her arms and sat back on the sofa, putting some distance between herself and this strange young man.

  “How did these photos get in here? I was the only one who packed this suitcase.”

  The Baggage Handler leaned forward, elbows on knees, and gently shook his head. “Oh no, Gillian, these are always in your baggage. They must drain you of energy when you have to lug them around all the time.”

  “Are you saying my family is happy when I’m not looking at them?”

  The Baggage Handler chuckled. “I think you’ve missed the point. You’ve chosen to see your family through these lenses. When you do, you see them as miserable. That’s the choice you’ve made.”

  “What do you mean it’s a choice? I didn’t know these items were in here until five minutes ago!”

  The Baggage Handler held out his hands, and Gillian handed over her glasses. He squinted through them.

  “Your vision of everything around you is flawed. You choose to see your family through the lens of comparison. You measure them against everyone else, all the time, and that means you tend to see the worst in them. Not because of anything they’ve done or the people they are, but because of what they haven’t done or who they aren’t.”

  Gillian teared up as these observations sank into her soul. Thoughts she had worked hard to bury were suddenly brought into the light.

  “You constantly choose to see your world through the eyes of someone who wishes life were better, that life were different.”

  Gillian wanted to argue, to stand up for herself, but her resolve evaporated because she knew, deep down, that the Baggage Handler was right.

  He reached for the mirror. “Gillian, you live in a world today where you’re told every part of your life isn’t good enough. You’ve fallen for that. It’s not a truth that will make your life better; it’s a lie designed to keep you wanting more and buying more. It keeps the whole system running. But it’s not good for you as a mom, as a wife, as a woman, or as a person.”

  “Everyone else does this as well, don’t they?”

  The slightest of smiles peered through the fog of the Baggage Handler’s mood. “Everyone else says that too. But that’s also based in comparison.” The young man shifted on the sofa and crossed his legs. “Sure, your life isn’t perfect, but it’s also not as bad as you perceive it to be. Life isn’t about what you’ve got. It’s about what you do with what you’ve got. Let me tell you something few people know: every time you point at someone else and wish you were them, you’re presuming they’re happy and content. You’re presuming that what you’re seeing is what the other person is. That’s not the case. You see, those people you wish you were like often look at others and wish they were someone else too.”

  The Baggage Handler shook his head. “I’ve seen this thousands and thousands of times. You’re comparing your weaknesses to other people’s strengths. You’re comparing the parts of yourself you dislike to others’ unique gifts. You focus on your dirty laundry and hold it up to their Sunday best.”

  Gillian knew she’d been like that for as long as she could remember—ever since her parents focused all their energy on their beautiful, overachieving, eldest daughter, Becky. A tiny crack appeared in her emotional tank, and tears once again welled in her eyes.

  The Baggage Handler offered her a handkerchief. “Things aren’t always what they seem, Gillian.” He grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and inspected it. “You see, it looks beautiful from a distance, but when you get up close and engage with it, you see it’s not quite what it seems.” He handed the banana to her.

  The fake sheen of the plastic was light under her fingers, but the Baggage Handler gestured for her to push her glasses up onto her forehead. When she did, she saw the banana peel was dotted with black.

  The Baggage Handler leaned into her suitcase, picked up the family photo, and sat on the sofa next to Gillian. “It’s the same with your family.” He pointed to her cross-eyed eldest son with his tongue poking out. “Tyson is a feisty little tyke, but he’ll need that when he’s older and stands up for the little guy. He’ll make a career out of advocating for people without a voice. But you constantly wish he would be quiet.” He pointed to the twins, one in a headlock. “You see James and Alex as fighting all the time. They won’t be the best they can be without that fight, yet you want them to calm down.”

  Gillian’s brain fogged. Calm and quiet were exactly what she wanted from her three boys. Those were the words she shouted over her shoulder into the backseat of the car during just about any trip they made.

  The Baggage Handler picked up the other photos. “Look at your house. Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s a home. Yet you look at it through the lens of what your sister has. Yes, she’s just moved into this massive house, but do you know how much they’ve had to mortgage their future just to keep up with the other families in their social orbit?”

  Gillian shook her head.

  “No, you don’t, because you’ve never asked. And even if you did, Becky wouldn’t tell you. You just assume what Becky has is better than what you have.”

  Gillian’s tears trailed down her cheeks.

  “Do you know what else? You then decide what she has isn’t just better than what you have but that what she has also makes her better than you.”

  The tears flowed freely now. This young man—this Baggage Handler—was looking deep into her soul and sticking his finger into every open wound.

  “Gillian, you’re playing a game you’ve already decided you’ve lost. And your family would like for you to stop playing.” He put his hand on her arm. “I would like you to stop playing.”

  Rejection and decades of self-worthlessness cascaded out as her emotional tank cracked open, and Gillian broke down.

  She looked up through the tears at the Baggage Handler, who himself was weeping. “What can I do? I don’t want to be like this.”

  The Baggage Handler’s eyes sparkled with compassion. “I don’t want you to be like this either.”

  “All right,” Gillian said, sobbing. “How do I fix that?”

  “I can clean your glasses for you.” The Baggage Handler pulled out a rust-colored rag from the top pocket of his overalls. As he polished first one lens and then the next in slow, deliberate circles, he whistled a tune Gillian was sure she knew.

  Gillian’s sense of herself, crushed for so long under the boots of others, peeked out from under the oppression she had sentenced it.

  The Baggage Handler looked at
her through each lens and then smiled as he handed the glasses back to Gillian.

  She put them back on and again looked at the photos. Her family was now smiling and cheeky. The boys powered their bikes down the driveway. Her church group laughed in one another’s company, heads thrown back and smiles all round. Gillian lifted her glasses. The photos stayed the same.

  The Baggage Handler waved his hand around the room. “Is anything else different?”

  The waiting room had transformed. The white walls were scuffed. The TV picture was slightly fuzzy, pixels flashing out of sync across the screen. The posters had tattered edges. What was perfect before was now run-of-the-mill, verging on disappointing. It was normal. Gillian looked down at the fruit. The banana was black-spotted, and the apples were no longer waxy perfection. She gingerly picked one up and examined it. It was slightly discolored and had an ever-so-small bruise on one side.

  The Baggage Handler nudged her. “Try it.”

  Gillian took a small bite, and her mouth was filled with sweet juice. It was the juiciest apple she’d ever tried. Another bite produced an enormous, satisfying crunch. She held it up. “When I looked at this apple before, it was fake.”

  “That was because that was how you were seeing things, Gillian. Now you’re seeing it like it really is. It has its imperfections, but what do you think of the taste?”

  Gillian took another bite. “I can’t remember eating an apple so fresh.”

  The Baggage Handler leaned in. “Here’s the thing: that apple always was tasty and fresh.”

  Gillian wiped away tears as she crunched on the delicious apple. “Thank you so much—whoever you are—for helping me deal with this.” She placed the partially eaten apple on the coffee table and stood. “I’m going to be so much happier now that we’ve met.”

  She reached for her suitcase, but the Baggage Handler stopped her with a hand.

  “We’re not done yet.”

  21

  David’s insides seethed with a cocktail of anger and fear. He raised a quivering finger. “Where did you get this?”

  The Baggage Handler sat back on the sofa, a picture of innocent calm as he crossed his legs. “Why do you assume I put it in there? You packed your bag. You carried it around. You locked it, and you opened it.”

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “Well, I think so, and I think you should be angry with the person inflicting this on you.”

  David felt heat rising to his face as he folded his arms. “Finally, we’re on the same page. Give me a name.”

  The Baggage Handler’s eyebrows knitted together in surprise. “Well . . . you, David.”

  David’s brain asked a thousand questions at once. He had no idea what to do with any of them. “Just . . . what . . .” Words, David’s usual weapon of choice, deserted him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the Baggage Handler.”

  David huffed his impatience through clenched teeth. “No, who are you really?”

  “Sorry, maybe I should speak a little slower for you. I . . . am . . . the . . . Baggage . . . Handler.” He chuckled, impressed at his own joke, and thick black curls sprung free as he scratched under his cap.

  David lurched forward as if he were going to grab this young guy by the straps of his overalls. “Look, buddy, I’ve got no idea what’s going on here, but I haven’t got the time to work out if this is the most elaborate prank in history or if you’re a stalker or whoever—whatever—you are. I need to get out of here. Show me the way out.”

  The Baggage Handler frowned as he studied his hands. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You promised to deal with your baggage before you left here today.”

  David clenched and unclenched his hands as the adrenalin surged through him like a rising tide. “Promised? What are you talking about?”

  The Baggage Handler reached across to the counter, where he’d placed his clipboard. He turned it around and tapped his finger on the form David signed.

  David stepped forward to read it. “‘I promise to make a choice about my baggage before I leave this facility.’” And then, at the bottom of the form, his hastily scrawled signature.

  “It looks like you’ve got a choice to make.” The Baggage Handler placed the clipboard next to him.

  A white-hot rage flamed in the very fiber of David’s being. He glared at the Baggage Handler, and then he stormed out of the room, only to be confronted once again by a line of white doors in a corridor disappearing into infinity. His ragged breathing caught in his throat and bounced into the distance. Trapped. He skulked back into the waiting room.

  “Why me?” David stood at his full height. He had to wrestle back some power. Somehow.

  “Why not?” The Baggage Handler laced his fingers behind his head.

  Another escape route cut off. “All right, so I have to get out of here, and I have to make some kind of decision about all this stuff that has magically appeared in my suitcase. What do I have to do?”

  The Baggage Handler gave a sage nod. “That’s better. When did this thing happen with Sharon?”

  David narrowed his eyes again. How did he know about that? Maybe Sharon was behind all this. Now that made sense. Tread carefully. “Last year.”

  “You’ve been carrying it around for six months, then, maybe longer.”

  A silence grew in the room, and then David waved a finger at the Baggage Handler as his careful tread disappeared under the adrenalin of indignance. “Hang on a minute. She cheated on me, so why do I have to deal with it? Why is it in my baggage?”

  The Baggage Handler shrugged. “I’ve seen this happen thousands of times. This isn’t the baggage of someone who’s been unfaithful. It’s the baggage of unforgiveness.”

  “Unforgiveness?” David spat out the word.

  “Yes, unforgiveness. You carry the consequences of someone else’s behavior, and it ends up eating you alive. David, you’re the one carrying your baggage around, and it’s weighing you down. But you’re choosing what to carry.”

  David simply stared. “That just shows you’ve read that newspaper.”

  “Read it, seen it, heard it, felt it, lived it. I’ve spoken to so many people in your situation, and the one thing you all have in common is holding on to bitterness because you think you’re punishing the other person. But you end up paying the price yourself.”

  David dropped his head.

  “I’m going to guess that you’re angry, no fun to be around, resenting the world around you, and addicted to various things to self-medicate the pain. But then it gets worse. You can’t sleep, and you live off antacids. Your body is drowning in bitterness. What you’ve done is drink poison in the hope that the person who wronged you will die.”

  David’s eyes flitted back and forth as he processed these incisions into his life. This Baggage Handler was reading him like a book.

  “And I’ve yet to meet a person who carries this extra baggage and is either happy to carry it or doesn’t feel its weight. And yet they still carry it.”

  David looked up at the Baggage Handler with a steely glare, his lips pursed.

  The Baggage Handler studied him with piercing blue eyes. From the end of the counter, the alarm clock ticked louder, its tinny counting of the seconds bouncing off white walls.

  “Why do you think that is, David?”

  The beginning of an answer half escaped David’s lips before his mind had a chance to reel it back in. “Because I’m . . .”

  “You know, don’t you?” The Baggage Handler leaned forward in eager anticipation, rubbing his hands together as David arrived at the right answer. “You feel it as well. It’s because, deep down, you know you’re—”

  “Right.” David again dropped his head and stared at the fraying white carpet. “She was the one who was wrong.”

  The Baggage Handler shook his head. “She was, but that doesn’t mean you’re completely right. Why do people think that for them to be right, the other side must be one hundred percent wrong? Life is fa
r more nuanced than that.”

  David glowered. “So I’m to blame here? Is that it?”

  Another shake of the head. “You’re contributing to this mess as well. She was in the wrong—I agree with you—but you’re contributing to the lack of a solution.”

  Sharon’s voice rang in his ears. I’m so sorry, David . . . It was a once-off thing . . . I was lonely, and you weren’t listening. Tears. Lots of tears. But none from David. Just the set of his jaw and a battle to keep his mind replaying the scene that led to the photo he found.

  David’s eyes softened a touch. “She thought it would be enough to say she was sorry.”

  “She was sorry. What did you do with that?”

  “If I was to censor it and take out all the bad language?”

  The Baggage Handler chuckled softly. “That would be nice.”

  “Then I didn’t say much.”

  The Baggage Handler pointed at David’s suitcase. “You’re about to break up a family, devastate your daughter, and complicate your life because, deep down, being right is the most important thing to you.”

  “Look. Whoever you are—whatever you are—it’s been a tough year, but I’m not the one who started all this.”

  A shadow passed over the Baggage Handler’s eyes. “I know, but relationships don’t break up one day out of the blue.”

  That sinking feeling was back in the pit of David’s stomach. That sense of foreboding, of ownership. Of making a mistake.

  “You’re angry with her—obviously—but the question here isn’t about what. It’s about why.”

  Why? It was the smallest of questions, but it jolted David. It was a question he’d never allowed to be part of the argument that raged in his head. He had fought through the who and spent a lot of time fighting off the details of the what. But why was never invited into the discussion.

  The Baggage Handler stood and smoothed his overalls. “This is a lot to take in, so I’ll leave you for a few minutes to think about it. But just a reminder, you signed a form that said you would choose what to do with your baggage before you left, and the clock appears to be ticking toward your meeting.” He moved to the door and turned the handle. “I’ll be right back.”