Give ittime.

I was told to use it and not to be careful with it. That was the whole instruction.

It came to work with me for eleven years. It went through two moves, one flood, and a repair I did badly in ████████ before someone at the market showed me how to do it properly. The strap is not original. I want that written down somewhere.

I was asked once whether I knew where it would end up. I did not. I still do not. I only knew it was not mine to keep, and that I was meant to hand it on better used than I found it.

Whoever you are: it is a good bag. Take it everywhere.

The saddle came with instructions to use it hard and never to sell it. I managed one of those.

It went to ████████ for nine years with a man I owed money to. When it came back the tree was cracked and somebody had tooled a name into the skirt. It is not my name and it was not his.

I had the tree repaired. I left the name.

The man from the office asked me twice whether I had seen it done. I had not. He wrote something down both times and would not tell me what.

Whoever holds it next: the name is not damage. Do not let anybody sand it off.

They told my father eleven years. It has been thirty-one and nobody has come.

I am not writing to complain. It has been through four winters at ████████ and has never once let the cold in. I have relined it twice, both times badly, both times logged the way we were shown.

My father wore it before me. He filed a statement too. I have never been allowed to read it.

If somebody is reading this in an office somewhere: we are fine. Take your time. But somebody should write to the family at ████████, because they are still waiting on theirs.

I handed it on in ████ to a man at the depot and shook his hand, and that was the end of it as far as I knew.

Eleven months later it came back to me. Same wallet. Same repair on the inside seam, the one I did with the wrong colour thread. Same everything, except it had ████ more years on it than it should have.

I have been asked to describe the man at the depot four separate times. I can describe him. Nobody will tell me whether they found him.

There are two of these. I only ever held one.

They have given me four objects now. I did not ask for any of them.

First a coat. Then a clock, then a pair of boots, then the thing I am not allowed to describe. Each time somebody comes to collect, and each time they ask the same questions in the same order, and each time they seem ████████ by the answers.

The man from ████ told me I was not being tested. He said it in a way that made me think about it for the rest of the year.

I keep them well. That is the only thing anybody has ever actually asked me to do.