A Lifetime of Music Boxes

She packs her little red suitcase as the last light of sunset streams through her window. Images of leaving had consumed her thoughts more than once before. The room lies in pieces, her closet still quite full. She packs like a child, not so worried about the everyday essentials. Instead she packs the things she can't leave without. Photographs cover the bottom, old photographs. Photographs of those few brief moments when life actually seemed full of joy. Drawings are carefully placed in a folder. She doesn't really need the drawings, but she needs for no one else to have them. The clothes that she does pack are wrapped protectively around a lifetime of music boxes. One smothered music box plays it's soft muffled tune. Always the same, the song is always the same. One tangible consistency in her life. Each song is linked with a time, a memory, a feeling. Never any words, just a simple melody. Eventually the distance between the individual notes increases and the music slows. The following silence echos through the empty house. Each vacant room proclaiming their indifference to her departure. The zipper sticks as she tries to close the suitcase, forcing her to remove and abandon another part of her life. Life has been a journey of sacrifices. Leaving however, didn't feel like a sacrifice somehow. Giving up the world wasn't all that difficult after all. A wallet and car keys lay on the dresser, the tools for building a new life. She rolls her little red suitcase out the door and doesn't look back.