Thirty-one years, twenty-seven moves.
The case came from the first one. Imitation leather, hard shell, two brass catches that still shut tight after thirty-one years.
Empty, it weighs more than it does full.
He weighed it. Packed with clothes and books, fourteen kilos. Emptied out, sixteen. He assumed the digital scale was faulty and bought a mechanical one. Still sixteen.
At fifty-four he decided he was finished moving. He had bought the flat and the mortgage had gone through.
He put the case in the storage cupboard, locked the door, and dropped the key in the estate's rubbish bin.
The next morning he opened his front door and the case was outside it.
There was a luggage tag tied to the handle. New, stiff card, the edges still sharp. A place name printed on it.
He had never been there and had no plans to go.
Three months later the department restructured and he was sent, and the alternative was no job.
In the temporary dormitory at the other end he opened the case. It was empty. On the base lay a luggage tag, yellowed, the corners gone soft.
It had a different place name on it.
He dug out every tag he had kept over thirty-one years and laid them on the bed. Twenty-seven of them. Every one was dated before the day he set off. The earliest was four months before his first move — when the case was still in the shop.