Lost

Let's get lost,
won't it be bliss?
Let's get crossed off everyone's list...

"Let's get lost," she said, making sure to stare directly into his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, lost. Really lost. Let's go somewhere we've never been and try not to remember how we got there."
"Okay, but why? Why now?"
"Because I want to see what happens."
"Well, I think it's impossible," he said. "Around here anyway. We could go someplace like Canada, without a map or anything and get lost. But around here, I just don't see how it can happen."

They decided the best place to start was the river. They went there in the summer to swim and to throw sticks for the dog to fetch. They had swum as far out as the middle of the river where the current pulled the hardest, but they never crossed to the other side. They didn't know what they would find on that shore.

"From the beach, there's just a line of trees over there. We could find anything ... a farm, a roa d, a factory," he said.

They were packing the necessities in small plastic bags: a shirt and shorts to wear over their bathing suits, a pair of sandals, matches, a candy bar each. They planned to hold their bag on top of their heads with one hand, and use their other arm to swim across the river. She wished there were more room--enough for a blanket or a flashlight--but it would be hard enough with these few items.

"We'll just have to make a fire for warmth and hope we can find berries for food," she said.
"Or we can catch a rabbit," he said.

That night, with her plastic bag on the floor next to her bed, she dreamed of the bottom of the river. She swam down and touched the silty bed. The seaweed wrapped its way around her fingers and wove through her hair. She swam through beams of light filtered down from the surface, and brushed against brown, scaly fish. She remembered how her grandpa said the scales were sharp.

When the sun came up, he was at her window. They hiked all the way to the beach before it was even eight o'clock. Stripping down to their suits, they packed their clothes into the plastic bags, and waded into the water. Crossing the river was easier than expected. Her shirt got a bit wet, and he lost the matches through a hole in the corner of his bag. But the water was calm in the early quiet of the morning.

They climbed onto the shore and looked across to where they had just come from. "It looks just like this side looks, when you're looking at it from that side," he said.

On the other side of the trees, they found a wide, paved road. It was black and smooth with a yellow dotted line running down the middle. It came to a dead stop at the river. It was empty. They walked right down the middle until the pavement gave way to earth that had been baked into deep ridges, cracked and crumbling in the heat of the sun.

She walked inside one of the grooves, one foot in front of the other and followed close behind him. She watched his shoulders move in time with his step. Noticed the things that caught his eye: a deep hole the perfect size for a snake, shiny stones, bits of milkweed fluff caught in spiderwebs. A mad chirping came from the bushes at the side of the path and he stopped to investigate.

"I think it's a baby bird. It must be learning to sing! It's making all sorts of silly noises, just like a human baby does when it tries to talk." He was easily amused.

Where had they met, she wondered. She couldn't remember. It seemed he had always been there, a boy on her block. She could always tell him from a distance by the way he walked. She would be sitting there in a pile of leaves, or peeling moss from the sidewalk and she would spot him in the top part of her eyes, ambling forward with a syncopated stride. She remembered playing games...kick the can, hide-and-go-seek... and then a moment where the object wasn't to hide anymore but to be found by exactly the right person, and then hide away with him. No matter how hard she looked, he stayed hidden. She found countless others. He must have found a spot she'd never think to look though other girls never had much trouble.

And after that, she'd spend days waiting for him to call, and then go out and return to her answering machine's blinking light. She'd leave the messages unlistened to, unanswered because she couldn't bear the sound of his voice and she feared she would reveal everything to him just by talking.

He was unreliable. Some days he would call to say he was coming over and never show up. Other days, she would meet him walking down the street and he would forget whatever he was about to go do just to be with her. It was those moments that she forgave him. It felt precious to be at his side. But those times he dropped everything for her, she realized the times he didn't show up he had been distracted by some other pretty girl. And so even though she was sitting with him on the park swings at that moment, it was likely someone else was out there waiting for him.

"I'm hungry," she heard him say. He stopped and turned around to face her. "I have no idea where we are either. Are you satisfied? We're lost."

"We're not lost," she said. She was irritated. She hadn't come this far to turn back now. "I know exactly where we are. We're on a road, and if we turn around and walk back the other way, we'll eventually get to the river, then swim across it, then be home."

"Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me. I thought we were supposed to try not to remember."

"Well, it's hard to forget," she said. She didn't know why it always had to be so difficult with him. Why nothing ever meant the same to him as it did her. She was still waiting for the day when she would ask him, "What are you thinking," and he would answer, "I can't live anymore without telling you..." and for her face to flush and heart to stop beating.

She held out her hand. "Come here. Close your eyes," and she took his hand and led him off the road and through thr brush to the side of the road. Blackberry thorns tore at their clothes and insects bit their ankles but soon they were under a canopy of old trees. It was as if summer had ended and fall began here. She could smell the sugary sweet decomposing of maple leaves turning to earth beneath her feet.

In the clear space between two great tree trunks she stopped and faced him. Taking his other hand she whispered, "Keep your eyes closed," and then closed her own. She began to whirl them in circles so many times she felt dizzy.

Keeping her eyes shut tight she said, "Now you lead me. Keep turning different directions. If we can't forget on purpose, we'll make it was confusing as possible on purpose." And so they took turns guiding each other, making sure to take an odd number of turns along the way until the woods became dense and blocked out most of the sun. It was late afternoon already and only diffuse light filtered down. She thought she saw small creatures scurring past their feet like tiny glowing lights.

She really was beginning to feel lost. She couldn't tell whether she was heading East or West anymore. And it didn't matter whether she said left or right. They could walk in circles or straight lines in this forest twilight and never know the difference.

"It feels cool. It smells so good here," he said and turned to face her. He was glowing a little too. "I didn't know why you wanted to do this. I was afraid to show up this morning, but I suprised myself. It was all mysterious, I guess. I guess that's what I like about you. You're willing to be mysterious for me."

He had grabbed hold of her hand again, although they both had their eyes open now and for the first time all day, she realized she would be spending the night in these woods instead of in her own room. His fingers felt bony and calloused and she wondered why they hadn't seemed that way before. She couldn't think of anything to say, and so she said, "I'm hungry."

They walked on through the woods scouting for mushrooms and berries. Darkness was closing in around them and the woods around them seemed even bigger now, the ferns towering over their heads. They had to push the ladder-like fronds aside as they made their way through, and scale over enormous, fallen logs that filled their noses with a deep, decaying smell.

He led her down to the edge of a clear pool. The trees stood back from its edge as if on purpose to let the water reflect the light of the moon. A fish jumped out of the pond, disturbing its surface and pushing the light into ever-expanding rings.

"Let's go in," she heard him say. He dropped her hand and wandered off down the bank, shedding his shirt and shorts as he went.

She had wanted nothing but this all along. To be alone with him under the stars. In spite of her shyness, she stripped off her clothes and followed him in. He had already made his way out to the center of the pond and was treading water there. She pushed off and swam the whole distance without coming up for air, surfacing when she spotted the outline of his legs in the moonlight.

Floating there next to him, she wondered if she should say it. It was there in her throat if she could only make it come out loud, "I've always felt..." and then she stopped herself. Did she only feel that way because she had never thought to feel a different way?

She realized he was looking at her. "Your hair is beautiful," he said and stretched out his arm. He ran his fingers over the top of her ear and down her neck and rested his hand on her shoulder. She tried to smile at him, but she noticed that his nose looked bigger than it had before, and his eyes were dark and sunken. She pushed the idea from her mind thinking perhaps it was just the distortion of her vision in the darkness. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, placing her lips softly on his, and tasted the small beads of water that rested there. She felt him exhale and then move closer to her, and then wrapped his legs around her so they hung together in the middle of the pond.

She felt something deep in the pit of her stomach. A satisfaction. A terror. But only kissed him again, and let him kiss her back. She pulled away when his kisses felt too hard, the softness gone and all bones pushing into her face. She looked at him. "I'm cold," she said, because she was shivering, although she had never felt warmer.

They left the water and dressed. Her shirt and shorts would hardly keep her warm, and she wished he had not lost the matches so they could build a fire. They began to look for shelter, "A low hanging branch? A hollowed-out boulder? Something like that?" he said aloud, as if saying it would make it appear. But they found nothing but moss and dried leaves, and so they swept those into a great pile and lay down together in the woodsy bed.

"I think now that we're here, we should stay here," he said. His hand was resting on the small of her back. "I don't feel like finding our way home."

"Really?" she was surprised.

"We could just keep going. We need to find food, at least. But we could stay here too. There's fish in the pond. We could fish and swim and stay here together."

She couldn't imagine what it would be like to live here, only with him. Their clothes would soon be worn and shredded, and they would live naked like animals and huddle together for warmth. She felt his fingers sliding underneath her t-shirt, next to her skin inching forward like a caterpillar. She turned to face him. His nose had grown again, and his skin looked green or blue with gaping black pores. But then in the next instant he was the same again. She stared wide-eyed.

She stuttered, "I...I thought we'd go back tomorrow. I'm sure we can find our way back. It won't be that hard."

"But you're the one who wanted to come here!" He was snorting and whining. "I like it here!"

"I do too. I..." and then she was sure of it. He was not what he seemed to be. The moonlight had exposed him for what he was--black beady eyes and pig-snouted. She slowly sat up and got to her feet. This wasn't what she thought it would be. It wasn't what she wanted. He was wriggling on the ground, trying to stand. She backed away from him slowly.

"Stay!" he screeched as she ran into the dark, branched whipping her face.

She felt sick to her stomach, a heavy pressure in her abdomen at the thought of what she'd done. Her vision was closing in but she fought to stay alert and keep moving. She had brought this on herself. She had opened something up in him that made him need her. He was close behind her, shrieking like a bat and she had done this to him. She was leaving him there in that state, abandoning her creation in the middle of the woods where she had led him. It couldn't be undone. There was no returning to the way it was.

She was lost, and with him dragging just steps behind her, she ran blindly trying to put distance between them. She tried thinking about which direction they had come from, which way the sun had been overhead when they had walked that day, everything she had ever read about survival in those books she read about castaways and orphans. All she could remember is that were she to get trapped in an avalanche of snow she should dig herself a little hole and spit to orient herself to which way was down. But she remembered they had made it so there was no direction. No up, down, East, West, left, right. The only way to find her way out was just to imagine herself leaving, and then do the real walking along the same imaginary line.

She closed her eyes and heard him somewhere, now not even wailing half-human noises. The transformation was complete and he was bellowing like a half-cow, half-great cat. She was sorry for him. But not sorry enough to stay and comfort him. She had seen too many other girls taking care of thing just like him--cleaning out the pens and filling the troughs.

With her eyes shut, she walked one foot in front of the other along the path she saw in her mind. It appeared slowly, a brick, a section, then the whole stretch. Ot was there inside her, she just had to ler herself see it. A golden road so enclosed in darkness that she felt it was the right path, and it was. She was back at the river.

In the night the water was black and cold, but she plunged in fully clothed watching her t-shirt balloon out to her sides. She dove in deep.

Her path went down through the water so she followed it. Past enormous bulbous plants that glowed like lamps. There was a whole world down there she never even knew about. Houses and streets, dogs barking little bursts of air bubbles and cats swishing their tails through the water. Strange people with slightly bloated faces walked to and fro, sat at kitchen tables, went into bars and movie theaters. Hovering above them, she wondered if her path had been leading her there all along. Was she meant to remain here, her own face getting fuller and heavier with the weight of the water above her? It looked that way, for the path descended into the heart of the city and ended murkily there.

The current pulled her hard down the path but she only had a small bit of breath left. Though the path had led her out of the woods, she wasn't sure she wanted to continue following it. She kicked hard against the water, resisting it with her whole body until she surfaced, gasping in deep breaths of cold air, and soon crawling up onto the shore and out of the water.