Still Missing

Still Missing

            “Clearly misunderstood,” she told me. We were waiting in line, the fourth in a succession of what seemed to be endless queues. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I decided to listen all the same. What else was there to do?

            “Hmm,” I replied, thinking that might be enough to prompt her.

            “What, you don’t agree? Names Tilda, by the way.” I knew who she was, but didn’t let on. Figured it best to let her tell me when she was ready. She stuck out her hand, letting it hover in between us like the space between breaths. “And you?”

            “Jack,” I offered, not taking her hand. There are many things I do, and many I don’t. Shaking a strangers hand falls into one of the ‘don’t’ categories.

            “Well then. In my exact estimate, I’d say this is something of a small crowd,” Tilda continued. She didn’t acknowledge that I didn’t shake her hand. “They said at Central that I’m supposed to act naturally, like I’m one of the rest.”

            “One of the rest? Are you one of the found missing?” I couldn’t resist. The story had been all over the papers.

            “One and the same. Pretty ugly scene, it was. Nothing funny about it. Can you imagine? Our only choice was,” Tilda’s voice trailed off. I watched her track a man who had emerged from a doorway. “He looks like an exact copy of the man in Central.”

            “So what are you going to do? You know, now that you’re out?” Behind us, a little girl was crying. Her mother, impatient and annoyed, smacked her. I heard the clap of palm against cheek and felt sorry for the child.

            “Well. It was no easy feat, escaping that cloud. Now that I’m clear, you know, found and whatever, I guess I’ll go back to do doing what I was before. Once I get through this line, at least.” She let out a long sigh. A scar in the shape of a crescent ran from the corner of her eyelid down her cheek toward her lip.

            “Think anyone is looking for you?” I knew her story well enough from the news that I felt like I could ask these questions. Tilda, along with two women and a man, had recently been discovered living in an underground bunker. They’d been there for years, their families had all but given up hope that they’d never been found. “I mean, I know you got out, but what about, well, you know.”

            “The guy in Central said not to worry about it,” she responded, lifting up her shirt. “Inserted this tracker here,” Tilda pointed to a small piece of metal just barely visible under the skin near her right breast, “so I can never go missing again.”

            I looked at the computer chip for a good long while before Tilda remembered her modesty and dropped her shirt. “But what if you don’t want to be found?”

            “I still haven’t been,” Tilda replied as the clerk called her name.