The Suitcase

I’ll admit, I hit play on *The Suitcase* expecting a clever twist or a punchline—something to neatify the unease. Instead, Marino hands you a scalpel and lets you sit with the incision. The story’s power isn’t in resolution but in its refusal to offer one. The protagonist’s escalating rage (and Collins’ *brilliant* delivery of it) mirrors the listener’s own growing discomfort, especially in moments where the customer service rep’s cheerfully empty phrases start to sound like a cult mantra. The pacing is relentless; there’s no time to breathe, just the cyclical horror of being gaslit by a system that *knows* it’s right, even when it’s wrong. That said, the brevity is both the story’s strength and its one limitation. The ending lands with a thud rather than a bang—intentionally, I think, but it left me wanting just a beat more, some final gut-punch line to sear the experience into memory. And while Collins’ performance is outstanding, his voice occasionally verges on *too* theatrical in the protagonist’s outbursts, pulling me out of the realism for a split second. But these are quibbles. *The Suitcase* is a razor-sharp critique of modern dehumanization, wrapped in a package so tight it’s almost claustrophobic. If you’ve ever screamed into the void of a customer service hotline, this will feel like someone finally handed you a megaphone—only to reveal the void was listening all along.