Two equal suitcases roamed three days with their nights through the most anonymous space of the trains, where passengers leave their luggage to volley. It happened during this last weekend on the Zaragoza-Valencia and Zaragoza-Barcelona routes. Twitter was the magnet that finally put each baggage in their respective hands. Meanwhile, a novel story happened that, as the Adif officials who processed the final episode said, they could have written Kafka or Andrè Breton, as it acquired “Kafkian or surrealist” airs for each of the victims of the loss.
The two suitcases were exactly the same. Both black, wavy, light in structure, anonymous as their sad or unforgiving color. Impossible to know who to report astray. None carried identification that indicated the identity of their respective owners. Aware of this common circumstance, the two passengers, one in Barcelona, the other in Valencia, each with the suitcase of others, lost their belongings.
One of the bags belonged to Edna Avinent, a 26-year-old Araucanian girl from Colombia, from the age of eight in Barcelona, who was traveling from Zaragoza to Barcelona, where she studies human resources. And the other, belonging to a traveler that we will leave in anonymity, made the journey that takes from the capital city to Valencia, with transfer in Camp de Tarragona. This last route also makes stops in Lleida and Castellón.
I come back for help. Yesterday, on the train Tarragona Valencia, Castellón stop, someone confused my suitcase. Yours appears in this photograph. It is now in lost objects of Adif Valencia. Mine contains books. I appreciate news. My email is jcruz@elpais.es
- Juan Cruz Ruiz (@cosmejuan) February 23, 2020Both passengers lived conscious of the ordeal that entails losing, in the anonymous immensity of the trains, luggage that has not been identified. Edna's had a lock. That of his missing partner was free of obstacles, and it weighed so much, Edna said, "that the Adif officials who received it felt they should investigate whether it carried illegal materials." I only carried books.
The alarm for the loss reached Edna Avinent at her final destination, Barcelona. The only luggage left in the wagons she traveled was that of a suitcase identical to her own. The other passenger discovered, before arriving in Valencia, that the suitcase that he believed hers at first weighed little, was locked and, above all, did not belong to him. The auditor gave him little hope of a reunion with his own luggage. The hypothesis that someone distracted her, believing her his, in Castellón, faded away despite the inquiries made by the different shifts at Adif's lost objects offices in Castellón and Valencia, where the suitcase that was locked was placed.
The user who ended up without a suitcase in Valencia felt on Sunday, after the unsuccessful efforts that placed his suitcase in the luggage limbo, that perhaps Twitter could help locate who had taken it by mistake. Thousands of users retweeted the request for help, to which the suitcase that traveled by mistake to Valencia was attached. That message destined for infinity finally reached the heart of loss.
The lost suitcase had traveled to Barcelona because of the fault of the user we have left anonymous. Stunned perhaps by the abundance of luggage, he chose to take a suitcase that resembled his own, and let it rest among other luggage until, when he finished his journey, he realized that the weight and the padlock were news that did not correspond to what he had dragged from Zaragoza.
At that time, Edna had dragged, resigned to having lost her own luggage, the bulky bundle she had inherited. While her loss colleague left the suitcase that did not belong to her, she went to Adif's Lost Objects at Sants station, and left her there, at rest, perhaps forever. Without a suitcase and without hope that his own luggage would return to his hands, Edna waited until Monday the knot was undone, thanks to Twitter.
The sister of one of the Lost Objects officials who works at Adif in Sants, who also does the same job in Tarragona, told her that a luggage had appeared in her apartment whose characteristics made her think that, “probably”, belonged to someone related to journalism or letters. "He has a book by José Luis Cuerda in his luggage, for example."
Juan! That is my suitcase! I've sent you an email. I don't know how it could happen, because I was going to Barcelona and when they arrived, they were already exchanged. Is the one in photography yours? It is in lost objects of Sants, Barcelona. Thank you! 💓 pic.twitter.com/oPozT3f32V
- Edna Avinent (@avinent) February 24, 2020At the same time, Edna entered her own Twitter account to announce to the lost passenger in Valencia that the mess had finally been resolved. He added, in addition, by letter: “What a joy that a good Samaritan exists in these times! I don't know how the exchange happened, it's something surreal, as they say in Adif. My hypothesis was that someone took my suitcase and left his by mistake, I left it in lost objects. Next time I will take my suitcase with my contact information, in case it happens again. Although I don't want another scare like that! ” The person in charge of Lost Objects of Adif in Barcelona was more concrete in his communication by mail : "We have seen his tweet and in Lost Objects of Barcelona we have a suitcase that could be his."
The other traveler prefers not to wake up from his anonymity and adds, only, that the fault of the entanglement was his and that if it had not been for Twitter and for Adif and for Edna Avinent the book of Rope would be lost today in the indecipherable anonymity of the trains
