She can’t take her children in the suitcase. They would fit if she emptied it. They could top and tail in the folds of the quilt she made of their clothes, but there’s not even enough room for their hands holding tight to the hem of her skirt, not even for their overtired tears, not even for the sound of the word ‘Mama.’

She can’t take her children in the suitcase. The suitcase is full of passports and travel papers, the borders and patrols of Northern Ireland, the watchtowers of the Berlin Wall, footprints across desert miles, train tracks escaping genocides, taking tunnels underground, underwater, and through the mountains and across bridges linking land masses across the times, with the wake of boats and ships that meet the ferry to Ellis Island, and the plane contrails crossing Lady Liberties skies, and all the spaces between these places in the suitcase, are full of maps with imaginary lines.

She can’t take her children in the suitcase. Not the day the suitcase is full of forest fire, screeching firehawks, and trapped animals, hiding their young. Not the day the suitcase is full of an exploding mine and a petrol tank in flames, an air raid siren, and three unexploded bombs. Not the day the suitcase is full of shrapnel and the smell of burning skin.

She can’t take her children in the suitcase. They fill the suitcase full of fire. All the sunshine and starlight. All the birthday, advent and power-cut candlelight. The campfire songs, the toasting fork fireplace, the smell of the turf fuelled range baking scones, and the chip pan flames and smoke with the scream of the fire alarm, that everything has to be left behind for. 

She can’t take her children in the suitcase. She leaves the suitcase behind. She lets it burn in the fire, so all that’s left is a metal cage outline and fastenings, like a charcoal-line drawing on a page, and from the ashes of lost belongings, she will rise and start again.

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Rosaleen is an Irish community worker/teacher/writer with work selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 2023, Best Small Fictions 2024 and Best of the Net 2024.