Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Theme Thursday again and I stretch both my credibility – as well as the credulity of you, dear readers – to establish a link between today’s theme, a photograph of mine, some text AND (it seems) the title. Thus, with no small sleight of hand I present the photograph above.

The scene of a crime? NCIS: Howrah Beach? A case of le mal d'étoiles de la grippe du Havre in flagrante delicto? A man, his wife (baby strapped on but unseen), and toddler armed with an assortment of rocks, seashells and other flotsam, jetsam and whatnot in his hands?

Have you guessed the theme yet?

SUITCASE.

Suitcase?

“A rectangular case used for carrying clothes and other belongings during travel”.

Dude. Suitcase?!?? What am I supposed to do with that?

However, it just so happens that...

[FADE INTO DREAM-LIKE SEQUENCE, ACCOMPANIED BY A FULL STRUM OF A HARP]

It started like a any other Sunday, surrounded by empty gin bottles and haphazardly discarded undergarments.

After pancakes, we ventured out, looking for fun, but expecting trouble.

In our travails up and down beach, we happened upon a strange and mysterious object.

“What is it?” asked the littlest beachcomber.

Jennifer murmured, “A box...?”

“A box jellyfish?” proposed Henry.

“No,” bellowed I, “it’s a conundrum”.

It was a conundrum alright. A conundrum wrapped in an enigma, inside a riddle, with a side order of mystery.

Worried that I might be faced with a lustful dame with legs up to here and a face full of unanswerable propositions, and fearful that the conundrum itself may contain a human head (or something worse), I shrewdly positioned myself behind the toddler and gently shoved him with my foot closer to the case.

“Open it up”, I venture. “It might be full of lolly snakes”.

Quickly clasping my hand over my wife’s mouth to stifle her inevitable (and protectively preposterous) protest, Henry approached the object in question.

“What’s in it...?” I whimpered, hoarsely.

[FADE BACK OUT OF DREAM-LIKE SEQUENCE, ACCOMPANIED BY THE SAME FULL STRUM OF A HARP]

Where was I?

A suitcase.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with that theme.