The light from the flashlight\u2019s beam glinted off the glossy black of her eyes, subtle enough not to betray her.\u00a0 This was not the first search that she had endured, yet her curiosity and literal childishness caused her to dare the tiniest peek.\u00a0 \u00a0Isabella\u2019s little heart beat at the pace of a hummingbird\u2019s.\u00a0 It seemed as if the pounding was loud enough to announce her presence.\u00a0 Yet, she remained silent as she watched the light recede.\u00a0 She had been well-trained.\u00a0 Had to be well-trained.\u00a0 To survive.<\/p>\n
Her kin were pressed in around her, were also in the rafters.\u00a0 Family was a loose term biologically here, but no less an apt description.\u00a0 She loved them all, but knew from experience that they would be gone soon, in one direction or another, voluntarily or against their will.\u00a0 Her body was young, but her soul already ancient.\u00a0 Hardened.\u00a0 Despite being occasional quarry here, it was a marked improvement over the place from which she had come.\u00a0 America was to be her savior, and maybe it still would.<\/p>\n
She ducked back into place, but her ears still rang with each of their footsteps.\u00a0 Then, an even worse sound:\u00a0 a pause.\u00a0 It was one room over.\u00a0 Two beats later, the splintering of wood.\u00a0 Then, so much shouting. Isabella stayed statuesque, restraining the urge, the sense, to flee.\u00a0 She surmised, again based on historical knowledge, that the house was likely to be surrounded.\u00a0 Her hiding place was pretty good, had survived the cursory inspection.\u00a0 She had to believe.\u00a0 Faith had gotten her this far, she was not to give up now.<\/p>\n
Isabella had been convinced, by the parents that were no longer at her side, that once they made it across the border, the rays of enlightenment would engulf them.\u00a0 Stories of America\u2019s mix of bucolic splendor and cities of opportunity trickled back to her old village.\u00a0 Wars political and pharmacological had besieged the town.\u00a0 Once her brother had the audacity, the bravery to try to stop the madness, he was gunned down and the rest of his family similarly marked for death.\u00a0 Escape was the only option.<\/p>\n
The promise of the new land was better than its reality.\u00a0 She was free but a captive.\u00a0 To the capriciousness of the system and the shifting moods of the neighbors that indulged her presence.\u00a0 She yearned for the true liberty that her new mates so thoroughly took for granted.\u00a0 But, in the face of it all, she did not complain.\u00a0 She was just\u2026frustrated, disappointed, not a little ashamed.<\/p>\n
As much as she wanted it to be her world, risked everything to make it her world, she knew that she was not of it.\u00a0 She sensed the hate, absorbed the glares, tried desperately not to let them weigh her down.\u00a0 Worse was not even being noticed at all.\u00a0\u00a0 People went out of their way to avoid her gaze, as if not seeing her made her not real.<\/p>\n
Isabella was a resident in the sense that she physically existed here.\u00a0 But she had no claim to permanence.\u00a0 Isabella was impressive, spoke English better than most of her native friends, was unfailing polite, had all of the hallmarks upon which her new home was founded.\u00a0 Those that tended to her, taught her, guided her knew that she needed only the slimmest of chances to become someone great.\u00a0 Their confidence augmented the scant bits that she had retained through the tumult and degradation of recent events.\u00a0 She saw herself in a doctor\u2019s coat, in a classroom, in a boardroom and tricked herself into believing that could be her destiny.\u00a0 Yet, for now, she walked through her new life cognizant that hers was an alternate reality.<\/p>\n
She knew her history well enough to know that many, many had been demonized before her; the same tribes that now conspired against her.\u00a0 The men who now dragged women and children out of the neighboring room were, without exception, refugees themselves or the descendants thereof.\u00a0 How quickly one can assimilate and forget what it is like to be Isabella.<\/p>\n
Isabella is everywhere.\u00a0 You know her.\u00a0 You may hate her or love her, pity her or fear her.\u00a0 But you cannot ignore her.\u00a0 You may try to help her or deport her, but you need to try to first understand her.\u00a0 In so doing, you will come to realize that she is you and you are her and I am you.\u00a0 This is not a country merely of plains and steel; it is an amalgamation of humanity.\u00a0 We all have our place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"