Fiction | July 28, 2016

Tryg spent the week, like every week, in the suburbs, lounging in the hammock with his mother, bouncing on the trampoline with his stepfather, choreographing plays with his sisters, sneaking cookies from the pantry with his sisters, building a hopscotch course with his sisters that had numbers chalked into the squares and spanned the length of the driveway and included multiple routes and by design took the shape of a fractal, doing homework, and reading, and, that whole week, his empty duffel bag lay in a crumple by his bedroom door, never letting him forget that eventually he’d have to leave. The duffel bag was made of a camouflage material, with his name embroidered beneath the zipper in cursive lettering, and had a canvas strap. The mere sight of that bag would send a jolt of despair spiking through him. He couldn’t enter or exit his bedroom without passing it. It haunted him.

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