The next morning, the aggressive sun, an unwanted guest, burst through my bedroom window, shining through the thick green curtains, making the greyish walls seem almost white and making it impossible for me to sleep any longer. No matter how tired I was, how hard I closed my eyes, how deeply I buried my head under a pillow, the light was inescapable, and the heat so pervasive that I left a silhouette in sweat on my sheets and pillow. It was early still, I hadn't slept much, and I had hours to go before I needed to be in the office, but it was useless battling the chillah sun, the mighty sun of the hottest forty days of summer.

I sat up, the realization still dawining on me that I was waking up in another country. I looked down at the beat up brown leather suitcase lying at the foot of my bed, burnished by the sun, it didn't resemble the ancient, near-ready to be disposed of bag I had dragged along with me to and from New York, twice now. Though it seemed to be losing its solid rectangular shape, its leather distended from the weight of the contents it carried, bruised from being dragged into taxis and off baggage carousels, tossed into cargoes, in the light it looked like something magnificent, something with character, a faithful suitcase, that would stand beside me on this and many other long journeys. One day, I imagined, it would be filled with items I had picked up here, things that I may develop attachments to one day, unexpectedly, like my standard Uzbek blue and white ceramic cotton plant print teapot that I made tea in, that I'd transport home thinking that it would bring back memories, even though today I found it banal, something you saw in every Uzbek home. Maybe one day many years from this day, when someone would ask me about what struck them as an exotic unusual teapot, I'd recall my days drinking steaming hot tea as we did on unbearably hot summer days in Tashkent, like this one, and thinking how those were the best days of my life.

I considered unpacking, but the thought of doing so depressed me. After so many months away from home, and my feelings of alienation back there, it almost felt like I had no place to go back to, that I was doomed to wander the earth. Tashkent was home for now, and though it was comfortable, in a way, I knew I couldn't stay here forever. I would get bored, would want to move on or something here would change and I would have to go. Tashkent was the kind of place where people came and went, people always had a packed suitcase, they "sat on their suitcases," as the Russian idiom went. I pushed the suitcase under the bed. I'd take out whatever I needed when I needed it.  ¶ 2:34 PM