How They Were Found by Matt Bell Page A

life.
     
    Her baby is a boy. Her baby is a girl. Her baby is potential energy changing to kinetic, is a person gaining momentum. Her baby is a possibility, or, rather, a string of possibilities and potentialities stretching forward from her toward something still unknowable. With the baby in her arms, she smiles. She coos. She tells her baby that it can be whatever it wants to be. She tells her baby that no matter what it turns out to be, she will always recognize it when it comes back to her. There is no shape that could hide her baby from her, no form that would make her turn her back on it. She says this like a promise, swears it like she can make it true, like it's just that easy. Some days, no matter what she says, her baby cries and cries and cries. 

HOLD ON TO YOUR VACUUM
     
     
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    ACCORDING TO TEACHER, THERE IS ONLY ONE RULE, AND IT IS THIS: No matter what happens, hold on to your vacuum. We have each been given one, each a different shape and size according to our needs. My own vacuum is bright red and bulky, as heavy as a ten-year-old, its worn cord slipping through my fingers like the tail of a rodent, thick and rubbery and repugnant. I start to complain, but Teacher holds up a hand and silences me.
    Teacher says, This is the vacuum that was assigned to you, and the only one you’ll be allowed to play with.
    I don't know this man's actual name or title, whether he's referee or judge or umpire, but he reminds me of the man who taught my eighth-grade science class. He has the same balding hair pulled into a ponytail, the same small gold crucifix earring, and when he smiles he shows the same small yellow teeth pocked by smoke and sweets. I only know he’s in charge because he's the one standing on the stage of the auditorium while the rest of us wait in the front row below. Because he's the only one of us without a vacuum of his own.
    After my complaint, there are no other questions, and so Teacher says, I promise to count to at least one hundred before I come looking for you.
    He says, I promise to look for you as long as you need me to, and then he says, Go.
     
    As soon as Teacher finishes talking, the other players reach for their own vacuum cleaners and lug them up the aisle stairs, then out of the auditorium and into the lobby. From there, some move further into the building and some through the double glass doors into the world waiting outside, but why each person chooses one or the other is unclear to me. One girl is tall and thin and agile, her tiny hand vac fitting perfectly into her grip as she bounds out the door and across the parking lot. I follow her as far as the sidewalk, my hand resting on top of my own vacuum. Watching her run, I don’t know where I should go or what I should do. This is only the first turn, and although Teacher has explained that the game is like hide and seek, I don't yet understand. I don't know what the rewards are for success, or what the punishment for failure might be.
    I blink once and then Teacher is behind me. Before I can move, his arm shoots around my neck and pulls me into a wrestler’s headlock, his grip strong and sure. His lips are beside my ear, the hairs of his moustache and beard tickling my face as he says, I thought I told you to run.
    As he says, You’re too stupid to be brave, so why didn’t you run?
    When his other hand comes into view, there is a cordless drill in its grip. The drill is matte black and dull yellow, loaded with a foot-long bit spinning at full speed. Teacher cocks my head and angles the drill downward into the crown of my skull. He pushes it in, past skin and bone, and then I scream and then I can’t remember why I’m screaming and then I’m gone.
     
    I’m carrying the vacuum again, trudging across a farm field full of snow toward the other side, where several rows of dark trees clumped between the snow and the cloudy sky might hide my red vacuum from the exposure of the open field. My lungs burn and my arms ache but