Saturday, 20 April 2019

Bags and Baggage




One will most definitely be amazed by the amount of …trash that lies in my canvas haversack. Or is ‘amazed’ too mild a word? Should I say astonished, astounded, stupefied, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, dazed, shocked, or stunned?

When you look at it, it is just a normal old canvas bag, too faded to look respectful in any kind of company – except that of the utterly grungy type – and too serviceable to be ‘pensioned’, despite the truth that the old haversack has, a long time ago passed its superannuation! Slung across my shoulder, or simply lying upon my chair or on my bed or anywhere for that matter, I guarantee you that it would not warrant a second look – it seems totally illogical why anyone would want to look at it in the first place. Certainly the old haversack has been the bane of my back many a time when I have had this totally formal suit on and strutted into office, looking all professional and dapper. All the more when I have trotted through expensive shopping malls, or some elegant store exhibiting female fineries, or a huge bookstore, which only the rich and the awfully educated frequent, or just simply in the solemn silence of a church.

To do it justice, as a spanking, new purchase, it was an olive green colour, with a simple cylindrical design and could be pulled tight by means of a cord. There was a flap over the draw string that had a leather buckle, which jingled when I walked, like the sound you would hear from a cantering horse. Another smaller flap over a pocket along the front sported a similar leather buckle; smaller I have described this pocket, but it is so astounding the many bits and pieces I could store in there.

Canvas is always strong, tough and sturdy and though not fashionable or expensive, it is very durable. For while, while new, it was stiff to the touch, rough and unyielding, but after a few months of rain and sun, there was a feel so soft and feathery that not even the finest lace or satin could, in my estimation, compare with the aging canvas of my haversack. By this time, the dark olive green colour had vanished, to be replaced by a sickly, yellowish-green hue that belied the robustness of the material. Along the seams and edges, there were distinct layers of grime and dirt, the result of letting it rest in any old place and never being mindful because, after all it was canvas and not some fancy leather pouch. And the fadedness and the utterly sloppy look made an old friend tell me once, “love the dress my girl, but the bag is out of place. It’s time you got another one!”

Therefore, the reader would have by now begun to wonder why this bit of condemnation not worth even thinking about let alone writing about would become the muse of a poor storyteller like myself. So, please allow me to remind the reader of my first paragraph in this essay and softly urge him or her to peruse those lines again; to summon before his or her mind’s eye that thread of text, to ring that bell, before I sally forth into that domain of that secret recess, that world of miscellaneous nonsense and redundancies which the yellowish canvas safely hid from public view.

Now what is so wonderful about the contents of my haversack? Would a thousand eyes peep over a thousand more shoulders to get a mere glance? Would lips of all shapes, colours and sizes form perfect ‘O’s’ of consternation by just peeking at the varied assortment of its contents? Why if you, or even you Sir. or you Madam were to delve into the dark regions of my haversack and were to pull out a handful of muddy shells or an orange peel and thus stand stultified, I would dismiss your astonishment with a careless grin and say, “Oh that…” and proceed with some explanation to stand in defense of why the said muddy shell or orange peel were where they were. And I can tell you with conviction that your dismissing response would be, “Don’t give me that bunk. I’m not a fool! You’re just plain untidy.”
Well, fools will doubt even the truth if it knocked them on the head with a hammer, but that is not the discussion here. So before I move off into a tangent, talking about fools and their follies, I will harken to the call of my first paragraph.

It is actually amazing how some people can be such prime junk collectors. I wonder if the phrase ‘mixed bag’ was coined by someone who owned a haversack like mine! I could write volumes on my mother’s handbag, and her other two or three other bags, which contain the most absurd articles that have never felt the warmth of use or seen the light of day. I could deliver a paper on my Aunt Marie’s handbag; it is neat and sleek and made from black patent leather, with a magnet on the flap that is concealed by an abstract metallic design. But when you opened the flap, unzipped one of its many compartments and tipped it over, like you see many actresses do in search for that magical hairpin which would assist the hero to open a locked door, you will wonder at the quaintest articles and knick-knacks and wonder again how in tarnation did they all fit in there? I could deliver an essay on the contents of my math teacher’s pocket and its extremely funny contents, which included a five-inch long piece of white twine (the purpose of which we could never divine,) but all this will take pages and time.

It will therefore suffice to say that I misplaced my closet key somewhere at the bottom of my haversack and I was thunderstruck at the stuff I pulled out, in an effort to find it.

Now, I will draw up a list of what I knew my haversack to contain, and must contain, because I used these articles every day. I carry these in my bag day in and day out, from dawn to dusk and thereafter from dusk to dawn because they form part of my everyday use. It seems logical to do so, so that the reader would clearly demarcate the trash from the cash.

  1. A diary covered with a courier flyer, which is gray. The flyer is extremely durable and hence could take the wear and tear that a cover would be subject to. This diary has some of my most personal details that I have scribbled over the past two years. It contains a poem, a short story, some math calculations and…a drawing of what I imagine a cow’s soul looks like. It also contains other important details like addresses, phone numbers and things I needed to get done and many blank sheets for many more poems and short stories and…drawings.
  2. My identity card is something that I need every day when I enter the office. It is not one of those swanky electronic ones that you swipe at the door to gain access, but just a laminated card with my photograph and name, blood group and date of validity.
  3. My wallet is rather important because…it is my wallet. It contains my debit card and some larger denominations of currency that I store in there. The coins themselves I normally fling into the smaller pocket in the front, or into the main part of the bag – but usually the smaller pocket because I can access it faster. You will remember that the main portion can be closed off by pulling a cord tight, and this renders it difficult to access anything quickly.  

That’s it!

So I am able, by means of that meager inventory, list what I would consider the ideal contents of my haversack. Of course a reader of great wealth might regard diamonds and gold as ideal, but wealth I have not and I think that has already been established by the some of my possessions listed. Never mind what the one with wealth should think. When I mean ideal, it is in relation to the articles that that were actually cluttered in there, and which, though added not even a miserable half a pound to the weight, certainly took me all the time in the world to locate one little closet key.
I will rob the reader of the suspense and be a complete spoilsport. My mother always used to say, “never read the last page of a book. What’s the point?”

The point? The point is I would hate to read a book which ended tragically. It seems such a waste for both the writer and the reader to go through an entire work, to only find that there are only tears and sadness at the end. I remember a time when my mother chucked a book aside because it did not begin well! And I think it was one of the best books of that genre ever written. No amount of persuasion on my part could induce my mother to read that book, and all because according to her, it did not begin well. So, I don’t think that it would spoil any of the fun if I said that amid all the commotion and assortments in my haversack, at the end of it all, after picking out each bit of ‘tripe’ and laughing at it and laying it around me, like the spoils of victory, I found that elusive closet key!

Lists are made of important things. Lists are made so that important things are remembered, used, stored or acted upon in a timely manner. There are some lists that are made of unimportant things so that one will remember not to spend time, on them or as a reminder to steer clear of them. So they are actually important. Therefore, I can mathematically conclude that lists are made of important things. However, I will not subject the reader to a list of the unimportant stuff that I conjured up from the dungeons of my bag. In other words, I will not make a list.

Therefore I shall begin, in simple prose, to lay before you the wonders in my old, canvas haversack.

At first, when I delved into my bag, I grasped the biggest object it contained and that was the already listed diary. I laid it upon my bed (I was sitting upon the floor) and then drew out my wallet, which was laid accordingly upon that important pedestal – my bed. Then I began my magic trick. From my bag I drew out two envelopes and a sheet of paper folded along its length. Within one envelope were a few dried seeds of a long forgotten plant that I probably wanted to set in the garden. I cannot remember where I found them, although the image that hits my mind is St. Anthony’s School which had a beautiful creeper of red flowers behind the patron’s statue. The envelope is dirty, especially along the folds and is dog-eared, as is the other one. This other contained nothing but an address and phone number written upon it. The neatly folded foolscap is an old resume of mine, dating back to 31st August 1999 and has along the folds a neat, and intricate pattern of dirt and dust. At the first sight of it, the viewer would probably be disgusted, but a closer inspection reveals an intricate web of an abstract pattern that tells the tale of weeks and months in a rucksack, dancing upon shells and sliding on pebbles. I will only say that if you opened the paper rashly, it will fall apart. I have three crisp copies of my resume and all of them within six feet of this bag, so I will discard this one. I ain’t getting’ no job with this kind of resume.

Then from those dark interiors I pulled out a handful of the shells I had mentioned before, some woefully destroyed and some whole. These I had picked up from the shores of a lake I had visited with my friend over six months ago and had thought them beautiful enough for my mother’s garden. Mingled with the shells were a few pebbles, foraged from that same spot and for the same purpose. I then picked out a black, spongy headset muff that was worn and torn and utterly useless, most so because it didn’t have a partner. There were six ATM receipts for transactions made over the last three months and one piece of a small orange peel that was dried and crisp. The remainder of it lay at the bottom of my bag in a mass of powder mingled with the sand from the shells and pebbles. Following closely was some small change and these I lay by my wallet. There was also a currency note, worn so terribly by the pebbles and the shells and the diary and wallet that it had a clear tear along its center.

Then I turned my bag over and emptied out all the dust and sand it contained and it fell like rain upon the floor. Now out from the small front pocket I pulled out the lanyard of my ID and as I yanked it out, there came forth a floppy disk, paper money, more ATM receipts, some bills, a piece of folded paper, some visiting cards, two chocolate wraps, some cotton wool, a roll of telephone wire, some cotton thread and one empty tube of glue. Also emptying out with my ID card were some coloured bits of cloth, two pens, a black bottle of nail polish that fell to the floor and broke right at the neck. The cotton wool and the scraps of coloured pieces of cloth helped clear the mess, but there was that divine odour of turpentine that prevailed that I could not quite get enough of. At the bottom of this…tiny compartment were a dozen or so coins and a few other notes that did not attach themselves to the ‘dog tag’ as it was yanked out. There were other assortments of pebbles and stones and bits of polished glass for a fish tank. There was even a wooden propeller that my brother had made years ago!

I peered at all of these things and laughed as my mother, who had been watching all of this commented with a grin, “and when is the rabbit to come out?”  My laugh was short lived. So far, the contents that I conjured up were ridiculous articles and of very little worth. How should I have known that something so deadly and lethal would also find comfortable residence in my bag? I scrambled back with a gasp, which sounded like “marmmee!” and flung the bag away from me.

“What’s in there?” asked my mother startled at being summoned so loudly. “Surely not that bunny?” She peered in herself, while I had some difficulty in forming the words, “black worm…black snake…I think!”

I hate worms. I hate caterpillars. I don’t mind snakes from a distance, but generally I hate anything that’s ‘creepy-crawly.’

“Snake!” she exclaimed. “Snake? Now don’t be stupid. How can a snake get in here? You have the heights…you mean this?” and out from the pocket she drew a long, black and shiny shoelace that now looked just as menacing as a bunny – which I’m sure, had it been safely stashed in there wouldn’t have surprised her at all...or me for that matter.

No comments:

Post a Comment