Weekly Stories

Author: Eva Nechai

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The Bag That Carried a Life

She bought it when everything was just beginning.

She was twenty-three. Behind her — university. Ahead — Paris, an internship at a small publishing house, and a dream of becoming a writer. The Coccinelle bag sat behind a dusty window in an old Kyiv boutique. The color — warm caramel. The leather — as if it breathed. She couldn’t really afford it, but still, she emptied her card.
— “One day, I’ll be in Paris with this bag,” she told the shopkeeper. And herself.

And off they went.

Paris greeted her with rain. In the bag — a passport, one notebook, a letter from her mother, and a one-way ticke

by Isabella Clarke

I bought my Samsonite suitcase on impulse. It was a gloomy Tuesday, and I had just quit my job. Not because I had another one lined up — I didn’t — but because I had realized I was living someone else’s version of success. The suitcase was cherry red, hard-shell, and unapologetically bold. It felt like a commitment to a life I hadn’t dared to live yet.

Three days later, I was on a plane to Lisbon. No return ticket, no hotel booked — just the Samsonite and a heart racing from equal parts fear and excitement. That suitcase became my mobile home. In it: two dresses, a book I never finished, too many chargers, and a little notebook titled “Figure it out.”

Portugal was my first stop, but not my last. I danced barefoot at a beach wedding in Croatia (even though I didn’t know the couple), got hopelessly lo