"I bet I could climb into that suitcase!"

Paul had met the woman in a hotel bar when she came over and asked to join him. Two bored strangers in a Premier Inn - there's not much to do on Tuesday night on the outskirts of Bracknell. One drink turned into three as they talked about holidays and their jobs and movies. At one point she mentioned how she'd seen Paul wrestling his giant suitcase when he arrived, which seemed an odd thing to say.

During the fourth drink, the woman checked her watch, then suggested she bring a bottle of wine to his hotel room so they could save money on the next round. When she'd first joined him, Paul had wondered if he might be in luck here but had pushed the thought away. After giving her his room number, things looked different. He made use of his head start to brush his teeth and she arrived just after he'd rinsed the sink clear. She had the wine but no glasses, so they used the mugs by the kettle.

The same suitcase that she'd referred to earlier was sat on the bed. That's when she said it: "I bet I could climb into that suitcase!"

Paul brushed it off with a joke, but the woman was insistent, telling him to get his phone out and take a recording. She said it would make a hilarious video and by that point Paul would have gone along with almost anything, in the hope that she might sleep with him. "Portrait, not landscape," she said.

Paul filmed. He has watched the video many, many times - the woman shrugs off her chunky jumper, revealing a grey T-shirt, and kicks off her trainers. She moves the suitcase near the edge of the bed and opens it, hamming things up a little. Then she lifts her right leg, puts it knee first into the suitcase. Somehow, against all his expectations, it looks like she will fit in there as she rolls onto her side, pulling the other leg in. She's curled up, like Paul imagines a squirrel or a wild animal might be. The last thing is to close the case. She reaches up her left arm, fingernails with chipped red nail varnish, and pulls the suitcase shut. From inside, she somehow closes the zip.

Then nothing. Paul continues filming for twenty seconds before saying anything. The soundtrack is interrupted by a noise that sounds like a train whistle in the distance. It's another ten seconds before he touches the suitcase and swears, shocked. Somehow, he keeps his phone pointed at the bed as he opens the case and it is empty.

Paul has watched the video hundreds of times but has never shown it to anyone else. He knows he's done nothing wrong, but he has no explanation for how a woman entered his hotel room and never came out. He keeps the video in case he needs it as proof. Even after watching it countless times, he does not understand the trick.

It's said that a lifetime's length of video is uploaded to Youtube every day, so it's no surprise that Paul has never seen one particular recording, as famous as it is in some circles. By coincidence, this footage is exactly as long as Paul's video. A magician is performing at a Vegas show. He shows the audience a box, open so they can see right through it. He closes the sides, turns the box, and when it opens there is a woman inside. But this is no showgirl, in her T-shirt, jeans and stockinged feet. The magician is shocked, and his surprise gives the woman the chance to punch him in the face, twice. Woman and magician end up wrestling on the floor until she is pulled away.

This video would not explain what happened to Paul in that hotel room, but it would make him feel better about it.

Background

Another story about disappearances, people only knowing half a story, and the idea that secrets are openly hidden on Youtube. The title comes from the movie Se7en (is that a spoiler?).

This was another piece produced for my regular writing group. I’d written the first half but only came up with the ending after a visit to the Blackpool Tower Circus. I know that the tricks with people appearing and vanishing are illusions but they still amaze me.

Recommendations

The very best presents are those you didn’t know that you wanted. When I received a copy of A Brief History of Intelligence from Tom, I was daunted at first. I read a lot of popular science books when I was younger but I’ve mostly ignored the genre in recent years - I’ve not even read Sapiens.

This book proved to be an incredible crash course in neuroscience. It starts from the early appearance of replicating molecules and tells a gripping story: about the first appearance of brains; how the rewards systems in our brains developed early in evolution; and where imagination and storytelling come from.

It’s great, fascinating stuff and a lot to digest. It has already changed my thinking on some things around AI, and I’m still thinking through other aspects. There is also an interesting question about where the next big leap in brain science might come from (I wonder if it might be related to the challenges of our social groups exploding beyond Dunbar’s number)

Most of all, I was amazed at how much we know about the brain, and how things I’d imagined as magical and mysterious have an obvious explanation. As a teenager, reading this sort of materialistic explanation was heartbreaking - the lies and cheap stories in Christianity set me up for disappointment. Now, I’m just amazed that the beauty and complexity of life emerge from simple replication.