LORPAS

LOST. IT ’S WHAT I WANT AND WISH I WAS AGAIN. Home is . . . used to be . . . wherever I was. Wherever I put down my folding cup, wrung out my cap, turned it inside out and used it for a pillow. But that was yesterday.

When I was discovered, I panicked. They woke me out of a sound sleep. I fought. First without thinking at all, and then because they could be muggers, and after that, when I saw they were policemen, I knew I might be kept in one place and have to stay with the natives for longer than I could stand. Someplace with nothing but a little square of sky. And that’s exactly how it is.

They gagged me with a dirty rag. I suppose I was yelling. They tied my hands behind my back. I couldn’t get a handkerchief for my bloody nose. They let me bleed all over my shirt.

I did do damage. I don’t know how much but they had bloody noses, too. Maybe a few black eyes.

They washed me, shaved me including my head. I suppose they were worried about lice. I had a mustache. That’s gone. I hardly know myself. They did all this with my hands tied behind my back. I calmed myself with breathing. I tried to imagine a sky instead of a ceiling.

I should be glad for the chance to rest, I haven’t stopped traveling—not even for a day, but still I long to be moving. They took, not just the laces, but my shoes. I had added two extra heels on one for my bad foot. Even though they’re worn out, I’m lost without those particular shoes. That’s not the kind of lost I like to be.

 ******

I THINK I’M THE LAST, THOUGH I KEEP HOPING there’s others of us hiding out somewhere. Mountains would be the most logical place. I was headed there. Mother and Dad implanted their own beacons under our arms, but did all the parents do that and was it the same lumpy red spot for all? And how could I ask somebody, “Lift your arms and let me peer into your armpits?” Even at the beach, I    seldom see under anybody’s arm. I suppose that’s why they put it there in the first place.

I blend in. I never do anything that they wouldn’t do. I presume we all do that.

We hoped for rescue. We waited. At least Mother did. She never belonged. She was never comfortable here. Most of those of her generation waited and kept on acting as tourists until the money ran out. They thought that would be the best way to survive here until rescue. Unfortunately there was no central location. Now the old ones are all dead and most of the younger ones I knew are spread out, who knows where?

I no longer hope. Actually I never really did. I played Mother’s game in front of her . . . the game of wanting more than what we had here—Mother said we were rich back there—but I knew no other life. Actually no other life than poverty. I was used to it. As long as we had enough to eat, I was happy. Besides, I was born here. This is my land. I never look out at it without a thrill. Even as a child I secretly relished this world. I wondered if I’d have to leave if we ever were rescued. Would Mother insist that I go back with her?

Mother said, “We may look more or less like them, but we’re not them and don’t you ever forget it.” She said, “Keep wandering, wear tourist’s clothes and carry tourist things.” She said, “Just keep waiting. Don’t use the freeze, but don’t let it die. Don’t marry one of them. If you don’t marry one of us, it surely will.”

I waited. I didn’t marry. Now I fear there are no more of us left to marry, though one can’t be sure, we were spread all over. And who knows, maybe in some mountain range, some of us might have lasted disguised as campers. There’s the rumor of a secret city. I was on my way to try and find it.

They called themselves tourists. Our parents just wanted to see this place for a little while. It was a class in understanding aliens. Mother was one of the guides but empathy was hard for her. She tried but she always hated the natives. “Homo sapiens sapiens,” she’d say with a sneer. “Sapiens. That’s what they think. They took two sapiens for themselves, for heaven’s sake.”

I could never see that much difference, us or them.

Had I known we’d never be rescued, I’d have mated with one of them in spite of Mother’s warnings. She was sure I’d reveal myself in a fit of anger, but I don’t think so. (Though considering what I just did, maybe I would have if woken up suddenly.) I could have had a normal native life. But could I have asked one of them to follow me, a limping bum in a baseball cap and a flowery Hawaiian shirt, with camera, field glasses? Never lost but always lost? (Though I’d have settled down if I’d married. There must be some way to get an identity and then a decent job.)

After my parents knew we were abandoned here, they went from job to job. Nobody ever got to know us nor we them. Mother didn’t want us to know the natives. She didn’t want us contaminated. She said we were born for better things than houses with pictures on the walls and malls and coffee shops and grocery stores—better things than little plots of land with flowers in them. . . . Trouble was, that’s all we younger ones knew.

At first my family lived in a camper but then had to sell it. Our father got a broken-down pickup truck and a tent and we went from place to place. My parents looked at everything with the same interest they’d had in the beginning, and often laughed at the native’s ways, but they always felt set apart. They didn’t want to join this world. They homeschooled us so that we knew more about a distant world and its wars and landmasses than we knew of this one.