Part I I often looked upon the times as a great sea of air, swimming with vivid fish that swarmed the place like people in a fair. The fish would sail by, and in the course of my blink, they would be behind me. I would turn and realize that there were so many more, so it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t see them all. I was first aware of this correlation when I stood, gazing up at the tanks in the aquariums, my nose a mere inch from the glass. A man shouted from behind, “Fire! Evacuate!” I heard a younger boy than I scream and plead for his mother to come. He was only some couple feet away from me, but I glanced at him and let myself be carried away by the flow of the crowd. My nose was no longer an inch from the glass, but rather, an inch into the bright pink fur jacket of the woman in heels shuffling before me. By the time we were out in the open, the entire east wing was smouldering a lovely black smoke. I must’ve looked like an idiot, gaping at the sooty sky, because one of the rescue team, dressed in his blue uniform, was looking anxiously at me, like he couldn’t decide whether I was sane enough to be bothered with (it was, after all, his job to catalogue all affected persons and help them). I clamped my jaw tightly shut and migrated to a less prominent place among the lines. One of the others noticed me and approached me with what he must’ve thought was a comforting smile. “Are you alright?” When, lost in thought, I neglected to reply, he continued. “Hey, what’s your name?” I shrugged. The man’s smile turned to a frown of freakish concern. “How old are you?” “Not very.” In all honesty, I didn’t know. I only knew that with a height of 4’6” I should be somewhere around nine. Counting every day of living is notoriously difficult, and I knew that after trying to draw a tally mark everyday the year before. Sometimes I forgot, so the tally for what seemed like a year added up to a measly 12 days. I was thinking about this when the man called over the blue rescue team outfit standing nearest by us. The blue outfit (for he was very tall) led me to another line, where they were passing out index cards and telling us to write our names. On my own index card I drew a small X and passed it back in. The blue outfit took my card and paused. “Don’t you have a name?” “Don’t you have a face?” I asked. There was another pause, and the blue outfit got on his knees, and I could see that he was a man, and that he was faintly smiling. “Or a home?” he replied. I responded very seriously. “My home is here.” “What do you mean?” I saw that he was interested. “I mean, my home is here. My home is always with me. Isn’t it better that way? I don’t have to be holed up in some two thousand square feet of tiles and planks. I’m freer than anyone else here, and that makes me the best. I know about people and their precious money and taxes, but when it comes down to it, what’s the point? We can live off the land and be richer than anybody who lives off their gold. It’s the pleasure of making something for yourself that is far more satisfying than using what’s been left behind by those dead.” At this, the blue outfit stood up again and left, apparently dejected. I hadn’t meant to insult him, but then again, I had never meant to insult anyone. It was inevitable that I found myself alone and ignored, but I liked it that way. What was my business was my business and no one else’s. I slipped away into the shadows. Several months passed since that incident. I was taller by some two-and-a-half inches now, and much dirtier as well. As was natural, the season’s onslaught of rain pellets created a great lake of mud of the woods where I now resided, as to avoid any further human contact. In truth, there was no need for the extra effort since people were generally repelled by my audacious mannerisms, due to their inbred “sophistication.” But still, I was compelled to make sure of my isolation. In the rain, I attempted to build myself a primitive shelter with the larger leaves I could find and the twigs that came down from the buffeting winds. My plans was none too successful, and I was half wishing that I had a hole of some two thousand square feet of tiles and planks. Ironically, here I was, trying to build one from the wilting foliage. At last the futility of my efforts became obvious, and I proceeded to curl up at the base of a tree, exhausted and desperately needing cover.