The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan

Author:Marina Keegan [Keegan, Marina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781476753614
Google: VUk9AwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 147675361X
Barnesnoble: 147675361X
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2014-04-08T07:00:00+00:00

Baggage Claim

Kyle dry-swallowed two aspirin as he entered the warehouse. It reminded him of a Walmart, only larger and more fluorescent. Mellow music hovered over the chatter that only 20 to 30 percent off could possibly inspire. It wasn’t his idea to go to the Unclaimed Baggage Center, or, as the women in the matching red polos at the door said, “The Lost Luggage Capital of the World.” The building boasted a solid fifty thousand square feet and stretched out like a giant cinder block, awkwardly planted on an island of asphalt in the middle of rural Scottsboro. Bridget had charted this visit into their itinerary long before they had left for Alabama and Kyle had decided he wouldn’t like it long before they arrived.

* * *

“Did you know,” she had said in the car, “that over one million lost bags come through there every year?” He grunted and looked back at the map. “It says here that one man found an original Salvador Dalí print in an old suitcase.” He wondered if she had planned their vacation so he’d finally propose. Wondered if she could sense the ring he had hidden in the cloth in the box in his Dopp kit in the second-smallest pocket of his backpack. Wondered why this somehow annoyed him, and why after all this time she somehow annoyed him. The way the foam collected on the corners of her mouth when she brushed her teeth, the way her clothes were always folded in squares, the way she eyed him when he didn’t eat his green beans. He didn’t bother asking what an “original” print was. Instead he faked a smile, squeezed her arm, and turned off at Exit 62.

* * *

Bridget stared up at the aisle signs hanging from the warehouse ceiling. “The deals here are going to be unbelievable.” She did a semicircle, stopping in front of him so their noses nearly touched. “I’m going to go look at those scarves.” She kissed him lightly and he noticed her cheeks were sunburned. Kyle nodded as she hurried toward a rack.

Despite the aspirin, a dull headache began to settle in on him. Supermarkets had the same effect—a type of pressure from the plaster above and the linoleum below. He moved down the aisle and emerged in front of a display of digital cameras. Atop the stack was a white-and-red sign proclaiming that ALL PREVIOUS PICTURES HAVE BEEN DELETED FROM THE CAMERAS, and below it was a yellow tag reading TWO-FOR-ONE SPECIAL! Kyle wondered whose job it was to erase the memories from someone else’s life. Some young guy who spent his days flipping through the pictures of an Indian couple at a ski resort or a family vacationing in Buenos Aires, monotonously deleting them one after another, perhaps pondering his own means of escaping Scottsboro, Alabama, and his job at its main attraction. It reminded him of a horror movie he had watched with Bridget on one of their first dates. A man received an eye transplant and began to see things from the donor’s life.

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