six degrees of Nigel Sullivan

Everybody has baggage.

Nobody knows that better than Nigel Sullivan. Nigel works for a major airline and spends his days driving lost baggage back to its owners.

It’s not a particularly challenging job, with the state of GPS technology these days he rarely gets lost, nor is the compensation particularly good, but what his job does allow him is plenty of fresh air and to indulge one of his two favorite hobbies.

That hobby?

He likes to open each and every bag and remove a small item. Something insignificant like toenail clippers or small keepsakes. Before you jump to the conclusion that he’s a kleptomaniac, he is not. He does not keep any of the items. He simply places them in the next bag he transports.

He knows that when the bags are eventually opened there will be an inevitable “Where did that get to?” followed closely by a “Now where did this come from?”, or vice versa.

He is the Kevin Bacon of baggage transportation. Responsible for the six degrees of separation that every traveler is unknowingly becoming a part of. An undercurrent of sorts.

His other hobby?

His roommate loves to do puzzles. The kitchen table always has a puzzle on it.

Nigel likes to methodically take them apart, piece by piece, and put them away when his roommate is done putting them together. For a 5000 piece puzzle it will typically take his roommate three of four days. Once done it will take Nigel about three hours to get it back in the box, and then the cycle will begin again. It is typically his favorite three hours of the day.

Another undercurrent of sorts.

Why exactly he does what he does with the bags is a puzzle. A puzzle he can’t quite put his finger on but is happy to participate in nonetheless. It seems important to create these little incidents in stranger’s lives. Sometimes he feels like it’s the only thing holding the whole world together. Corners of a world where these travelers have just returned from. The world he drives through every day, rain or shine. The world he sees on the TV and in movies. An endless montage of people and places. Choking on exhaust and dramas.

Everyone has baggage.

Nobody knows that better than Nigel.

“Only, in the end, you will realize. Among all the baggage you carried all your life, you didn’t own most of them. And the remaining weren’t as important as you always thought or expected it to be.”

― Akshay Vasu

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”

― Lewis Carroll