Takeshi was, by any measure, a worrier. The day he learned his wife Yoko would spend three weeks on an ice planet for work, a bag started growing by the front door. Every day, it got a little bigger.
“Will this be warm enough? No — they said minus two hundred degrees. Better add another layer, just in case.”
“There’s a hotel out there, you know,” Yoko said.
“What if the power goes out? You never know. Just in case.”
By the night before she left, the bag was the size of a refrigerator. Forty servings of freeze-dried curry. A blanket that puffed up when you added hot water. A solar-powered heating pack. Hardtack biscuits. And a note that read, in block letters, READ THIS IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG.
“Takeshi.” Yoko looked up at the bag and laughed a little. “I’m going for three weeks. I’m not moving there.”
“But it’s an ice planet. Who knows what could happen—”
“It’ll be fine. People live there too, you know.”
On the morning she left, Yoko stood at the door with nothing but a backpack. The bag sat exactly where it had been, untouched.
“You’re not taking it?!”
“Too heavy. See you in three weeks.”
The door clicked shut, and Takeshi was left alone with a refrigerator-sized bag.
That bag turned out to be useful after all — three days later.
Every dockworker at the spaceport walked out on strike at once. Every cargo ship sat grounded. The news kept repeating the same line: fresh food shipments wouldn’t resume for roughly a month. This city imported everything it ate from off-world.
Vegetables disappeared from the supermarket shelves. Then meat. Then milk. The neighbors stood on their doorsteps, sighing.
Takeshi alone was unbothered.
Every night, he wrapped himself in the self-warming blanket and poured hot water over another pack of freeze-dried curry. Forty servings would last a while. The heating pack kept him toasty.
“Who knew the stuff I packed for Yoko would end up saving me.”
Feeling pretty pleased with himself, he placed a call. It was a long way out, so the connection took a moment to catch up.
“Hey, Yoko? Things are rough over here — the whole city’s out of food. But I’ve got the emergency bag, so— anyway, is it cold where you are?”
There was a pause, then the soft crash of waves came through the line.
“Huh? Oh, it’s — ” Yoko’s voice was suspiciously relaxed. “The strike grounded the flight to the ice planet. The company’s got us waiting it out on the next planet over. I’m, um — at the beach right now.”
“The beach.”
“Just putting on sunscreen. How’s the curry treating you?”
He hung up and stared at the ceiling for a while. Then he got up, walked to the closet, and pulled out a new bag.
For the next trip: swimsuit, sunscreen, and — just in case — the blanket too.