Unattended Luggage
See it, Say it, Sorted
Joseph sat on the edge of a row of metal chairs, waiting for the train. The stairs nearby stretched all the way to the end of the vast station, situated in the heart of London.
Most people were rushing about, but others were checking the terminal screens. It looked like a river flowing around islands: some folks were in a rush, and some stood with their eyes on the train schedule, clustered together.
Next to him, a woman was feeding pigeons, which he thought was a pretty bad idea. He figured they were parasites and, if it were up to him, he’d shoot them all—nasty little birds.
His luggage was on his left, with his jacket hanging from its extended handle.
He was coming back from a three-day business trip. They stayed in a hotel and did some corporate voodoo that he thought looked a lot like cult rituals or group mind control.
He was very glad this was over.
A sudden voice called out: “Please don’t leave your luggage unattended.”
It called out the exact phrase three times consecutively, as if someone had just spotted a breach.
Yet, Joseph could see no unattended luggage.
At this point, he noticed two guards approaching in his direction, pointing at his luggage, barely acknowledging him at all.
The guards were closing in, their eyes fixed on the case as if it were a bomb. One of them was tall, with grey hair, in his fifties, while the other was of medium height, middle-aged, and bald. When they finally reached the luggage, they said:
“Right, Igor,” one guard said to the other guard, ignoring Joseph. “This luggage is unattended; we need to take it.”
The other guard nodded.
But Joseph frowned; in the end, it was clearly his luggage, and he sat just right next to it.
“I’m sorry, but this is my luggage.”
“I’m sorry, sir. This luggage appears to be unattended,” said the bald guard, Igor.
“What do you mean, I sit next to it?” He then frantically put a hand on the luggage handle. “Now I clearly attend the luggage, see?”
The tall guard spoke. “Sir, this is not how you attend the luggage.”
“Correct,” Igor added. “We need to confiscate it and remove it from the premises.”
“No! This is mine!”
“Sir, you will be removed from the premises if you fail to comply, and brought to law enforcement if you resist.”
“But I keep telling you, I attend the luggage, I hold it, it’s mine, it’s got my stuff in it!”
The tall guard replied, “Again, that’s not how the luggage should be attended.”
Joseph stared at him. “Then… how is it supposed to be attended?”
The tall, older man gave a patient little smile, as if Joseph were a confused child.
“Simple, sir. As part of the Standard Attendance Procedure, I’ll show you. You get into it.”
Joseph laughed awkwardly. “What?”
But the bald guard, Igor, wasn’t laughing. He’d already placed his hand, unzipping Joseph’s luggage, and one could see everything in it: shirts, chargers, electronics, typical business trip stuff.
“You need to make some room there, and we’ll show you.”
“O—Okay, I need to be careful, there’s a laptop—”
Joseph patiently removed just enough so that he could fit in. Socks, shirts, and papers from the conference were now lying on the station floor. He then crouched and positioned himself in the luggage, lying on the side.
The two guards pressed it together and zipped the luggage almost all the way through, leaving a small gap for breathing. Joseph was inside, already sweating and feeling claustrophobic.
Igor said, “Right.”
“This is insane. I’m not going to—” Joseph began, muffled. Suddenly, pain shot up his ribs as the edge of the case bit in.
It felt as if both guards jumped on and off the luggage, using their full weight and taking turns. Their boots thudded in a steady, mechanical rhythm, each impact jolting through Joseph’s curled-up body as the case buckled and flexed around him.
“Stop— ow, what are you doing?” protested Joseph.
The tall guard shouted, “Attending the luggage, sir!”
“Stop! Stop, stop—!”
His muffled cry from within the luggage echoed down the station, but no one really cared. People flowed past, minding their own business, meticulously avoiding the situation. A woman stepped neatly around his scattered shirts and continued to feed the pigeons.
At last, the guards let go.
Joseph took a breath and continued, “You can’t just… crush me into my own luggage! What the hell is wrong with you?”
The tall guard smoothed his jacket. “You asked how to attend it, sir. That is the correct way.”
“Are there… other ways?” His voice came out breathless. “Other ways to attend the luggage?”
The two guards exchanged a glance.
“Yes,” Igor said at last. “Of course. Do you want to see them?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
The guards positioned the luggage upright and took a handle, rolling it away somewhere. They stopped at the very edge of the platform, where the yellow line warned that PASSENGERS MUST NOT CROSS.
Without ceremony, something yanked, and immediately Joseph felt the luggage was flying, definitely mid-air. The luggage smacked against the ground, and Joseph felt excruciating back pain. He stopped for a few seconds, collecting himself.
“What... What are you doing?!” Joseph shouted in pain. “I’m in here! Why would you do that?!”
The luggage landed squarely on the train tracks. Joseph’s clothes bulged through the crack like something trying to escape.
“Where am I?” Joseph demanded.
“The train tracks, sir. There’s an incoming train attending to you”.
A train noise could be heard in the background.
“If you prefer this method, sir, we’ll wait until the train arrives.”
“NO! No!” he screamed, knowing this could be the end. “I will die!”
“Yes,” the guard agreed, perfectly calm. “That is unfortunate, sir. But this is how you properly attend your luggage.”
“Help me! Let me out!” Joseph shouted, but guards wouldn’t flinch, fearing for their own safety here. They only smirked. In the end, they were merely communicating the rail’s procedures. They did nothing wrong by law.
For a moment, Joseph hesitated and panicked, thinking of ways to save himself. He found the small gap that the guards had left for air, wedged his fingers in first, then his entire hand, and tried to expand the opening. It was a slow process, but it worked.
The train was closer and closer, and Joseph was caught somewhere between outrage and the sick certainty that they were absolutely serious. The sound was now overwhelming, and Joseph could feel his entire body vibrating; the tracks were giving back everything they could to the luggage. He was halfway through his task, anxiety at his peak, fight or flight response.
The guards’ faces tightened in the same instant, seeing where this is going.
At the last possible moment, Joseph tore the zipper open, spilling himself and a burst of clothes onto the gravel. He grabbed the luggage by reflex and scrambled out of the track, rolling over the yellow line as the train roared past behind him.
“I am not fucking doing it! I am not attending my luggage.”
Igor said, “In that case, you are in breach of safety regulations, Article 5.2 of SAP. You will come with us now.”
They took him by the arms, with his feet dragging. The battered luggage was bumping along behind them on one shrieking wheel.
***
“I’m telling you, it’s just fucking luggage, just take it, I don’t want it,” said Joseph to the police officer in the interrogation room.
Joseph sat in a room with a desk and Venetian glass. In front of him were two men in their late thirties.
“But I feel like you’re not telling us something, mister. You want us to think the luggage is worthless. Perhaps this is some kind of diversion?” said the man on the left, the shorter one.
“No, it is not. I’m just tired of it. Leave me alone, all of you.”
“Hm, this is definitely peculiar, and it looks like you’re up to something. Who would’ve wanted to leave their luggage? Why not attend it? Are you a terrorist?”
The last question especially struck Joseph hard. There was no way he looked capable of anything like that, a chubby guy with glasses and a bit of a beard. Joseph’s looks were as harmful as a cocker spaniel.
“Yeah,” concurred the first officer. “This definitely feels like some kind of diversion strategy, but I can’t yet figure out what it is...” he pondered, “No one in their right mind would have left their luggage unattended unless they had a good reason. You’re a tough cookie, but we’ll crack it”.
“I have a good reason. I tried attending it, but I find it rather hard”, Joseph said, desperately.
“Nice try, but—”
“—Oh fuck it, I’ll attend the luggage.”
“Alright, alright, no need to be so upset, sir!” “In this case, we’re good,” he said, standing up, reaching for Joseph’s hand for a handshake.
“Yeah, have a nice day, sir. Happy travel!” said the inspector’s partner.
“Just one thing,” the first inspector started, “Make sure you attend it well. Next time, we won’t be so understanding. We don’t play games here.”
Joseph grabbed the luggage and stormed out of the interrogation room.
***
Joseph found himself back on the train station’s floor, exhausted. The station’s lights were humming like insects.
The two guards he had previously met were looking at him, expecting him to attend the luggage.
He knelt down and opened the battered luggage again. Then he slowly lay inside it, curling up like a fetus, so that it could be closed.
The moment his side touched the lining, the luggage closed itself.
The body of the luggage moved in and out, slightly more than could be accounted for by Joseph breathing alone, which the two guards considered odd.
Then, the zipper slid shut on its own, clamping down with a furious Zzzzip sound.
Inside the luggage, Joseph felt the first shift, a tingling sprang from his fingertips and rushed up his arms. His clothes softened and sank into each other and down into Joseph’s body. Threads dissolved like chocolate as they touched his skin.
Conference notes and papers squirmed, fusing themselves into rib-like structures along his sides. Joseph’s brain absorbed their content that moment, as if it were almost woven into his nervous system. The laptop charger coiled around his spine in a tight, serpentine wrap, becoming a new part of his body. It then shot out through the luggage, and its three-pin plug emerged like a dog’s tail, wagging.
The luggage walls pressed closer onto Joseph, merging and moulding into him, the luggage’s contents increasingly becoming his new organs. The synthetic fabric of the luggage bound to him, grain by grain, fibre by fibre, until the luggage’s surface was his hardened skin, durable and textured in ridges.
The two guards nodded their heads in approval. What was unfolding seemed like a sufficient effort on Joseph’s part. “Good man,” said Igor.
Then, suddenly, a loud crack was heard.
Joseph’s legs shot outward, elongating and punching through the luggage’s outer layer, as if they hatched, popping. They were now snapped into place like new limbs bursting from a cocoon.
Now, the pressure mounted against his shoulders, and his arms jerked, quickly tearing through the side flaps of the luggage. With his hands out, on the floor, they stabilised themselves, coated in strands of sticky foam padding.
The new instinct appeared—primal—and it pulled him forward.
He pressed his hands and legs against the station’s floor, lifting the luggage up, and moved.
He crawled. He was a luggage torso with limbs and a wagging tail. His new limbs skittered across the cold station tiles in a lopsided, insect-dog rhythm. Joseph felt horrifyingly alive, for some reason, extremely happy about his new form.
He knew this was what perfect luggage attendance looked like. Walking upright had once been normal, but now it felt unnatural. This—crawling, hauling himself along the tiles—was how luggage was meant to exist.
“My god, yes, that luggage is attended quite decently, so!” said Igor’s colleague.
“Agreed,” said Igor himself. “I don’t know what took him so long.”
Seeing no further trouble, they went back to their regular daily activities.
***
The luggage proudly paraded throughout the station, showing everyone by-the-book attendance, a proper form.
Igor and his friend were just coming back from lunch when they saw the luggage demanding attention. He crouched down.
“Good boy, good, properly attended,” he said, petting the luggage, which at this point wagged its tail happily in return.
Igor’s colleague stood there in approval. “You know, Igor, I was talking to my wife about it, actually, if I were not to attend to my luggage properly next time. Say, at the airport.”
“Yeah, your time at the airport could go really badly.”
“Yeah, yeah, Igor, weird things could happen, mate.”
They gave the luggage a snack, which was a piece of a sandwich from lunch, and returned to their day.
Third Eye Horror
© Mac Sitko, 2025
All rights reserved.