What's in your Bag?

"What's in your bag?"

"Why should I tell you?" you would retort. And wonder, why do I ask. 

"Because I would like to fiddle, that's why." But of course! "And set the wiggling things right." 

You would be suitably disheveled, curiosity getting the better of you.

"And what are wiggling things, did you ask?" Are you insane not to know. "Why, the extremely important ones. Didn't get that? The ones you can't discard. Those." 

"Let me show you."

Here, come, give me your bag and I would unzip it to yield more zips and compartments. I would then zip it up quickly to get back to the front. In case I missed a compartment outside. I did. So I now open the chain to its clinking which confirms there are coins that you get as a change from your various travels, and your earphones. Dear, dear, they are in a sorry state. Tattered, really. If I were you, I would have wondered what made the songs reach my ears despite its condition. The heart may be, I would think. Carefully, I would take out the two tickets and keep them aside. "Cleanliness is a godly habit, let's begin right away!"

Now that I am calm having taken care of the outside, let me venture into the insides. One zip dividing two compartments, a mobile compartment and a smaller zip. Quite nice. That lime inner lining is wonderful in its surprise contrast to the rich brown of the outside. Almost reveals that your personality is capable of so much more than what you appear. Ah, what do I see now? A wallet, olive green, a make-up bag in royal blue, a blue bottle, a comb and a deo on one side, while a notebook in tasteful cover, a thin copy of Collected Short Stories and a transparent pencil bag on the other. How cute is that pencil bag! Time for the conversations. 

"Really well packed bag!"

"Why not?" You seem angry, amused too that I actually persisted.

I brought out the pencil-bag, much to add to your amusement and smiled at the two ball point pens. Sensible chick, Reynolds. Suavely, I opened the zip. That was the wiggly chamber. Movie-tickets, crumpled bills of heavy shopping and light meals, once-upon-a-time-holy-now-aged thread, a ten-rupee note, a Roast Almonds cover, a rusting nib of a Sheaffers and finally, a red ribbon.

Jackpot!

I went to the mobile compartment, which too had tickets within that I got out. The smaller compartment fitted your house-keys and its importance of premium position. Everything checked, I went back to the treasure trove with the cunning of a detective but the bluntness of a naive and exclaimed, "Explain!"

"What?" you were shocked.

"Why, these!" as I held the two sides of the zip open to show you the wiggling gems.

"Oh they are nothing. I have been meaning to throw them out."

Really? "Really?"

You laugh nervously now. "Well, not all of it."

I am curling the ribbon into a shape. "Leave them, man."

"All of it?" I ask feigning innocence.

"Yes."

"Who was it?" Silence.

If I only had my memory, I would know it was me.