The wanderer returns and the suitcase explodes.

Who is this tanned, slender, handsome man who staggers out of the station under the weight of his baggage? He is smiling a smile that I vaguely remember having seen twenty years ago, but not so often recently.

It is that of a relaxed man who has only had to worry about mealtimes, travel arrangements, and not leaving his passport and money in telephone booths; a man who has sat in cafés and watched people, and talked to strangers; who has had the most precious of all gifts …time to just be.

I breathe in his calm in deep greedy gasps. I clutch at him. Perhaps he can transfer some of it to me by his mere touch. I remember coming back from India with the same feeling myself and search my racing brain for the mind set. That feeling of being balanced and centred, of living now. I think it is called happiness.

We go back home, the family gather round the table, and the suitcase explodes. Now we are all smiling as we touch the silks, play the instruments and wear the jewellery…

The woodstove hisses and roars obediently after just one last gesture of defiance when it fills the whole house with smoke. He is back then...