** This article is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as shared with me by a friend who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. **
My friend Elsie loves camping, beach combing, and rock collecting. The other day she was sharing this story with me. She had been camping near a river, and she saw a suitcase floating in the river. She was curious and decided she’d pull the suitcase into the shore and take a look. At this point, lots of crazy things were going through her mind. What would she find in the suitcase? Would it be the next murder mystery? Would it be someone’s clothes? Would it be full of money?
Using her brother’s cane and a fishing rod, she managed to pull the suitcase to shore. It was very heavy, and she had a creepy feeling looking at it as it lie on the bank of the river. She wasn’t sure if she should open the suitcase or call the authorities. She finally decided that she would open it because if it wasn’t a body, she didn’t want to feel silly calling the authorities.
Slowly she unzipped the suitcase, and water began pouring out. Then, she saw a layer of sand. Lots of sand. Since the suitcase was nylon, it was waterlogged, and somehow, it had collected a large amount of sand while it had been in the river.
Relieved that it wasn’t a new murder mystery to be solved, she set the suitcase aside for the duration of her trip. She had it laid out on top of a picnic table to dry it out since it was so wet. Within a few days, it was dry enough to zip shut; however, she didn’t want to take a suitcase back up the banks to her car without something in it, so she loaded it with the rocks that she had collected on that particular camping trip.
She was laughing when she told me that it took both her and her brother to haul the suitcase up the hill to her car. What would you have done? Would you have hauled the suitcase out of the water? Would you have opened it or called the police?
© Lefty Graves. 2023 All rights Reserved.
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