Missing Persons' Report
MISSING:
Name: Mitchel Thomas
Age: 18
Sex: Male
Race: White
Eyes: Hazel
Hair: Brown
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 160
Missing From: Home
Missing Since: June 17, 2012
Have you seen this person?
There is a machine.
It prints these.
It spits these out, one after another.
It's all the machine knows;
This format, this information.
It knows that paper in its memory.
And that it must print it.
And so it does.
It keeps printing, until it stops.
Later, it receives another document,
With most of the information constant.
And it prints copies of this one too.
Until it stops.
Soon another is printed.
Then again.
Again.
Soon,
All are alike.
Nothing is different.
The information is the same, every time.
There is another machine.
This one is much more complicated, more diverse.
It lives.
It's a brain.
It knows more personal things.
Very sensitive information.
Information that must be filed.
Retained.
Classified.
Hidden.
The messages,
The slips of paper that are put into annotated folders,
Then into a box sealed in red and placed, gently,
aOnto of a dusty metal shelf,
Archived in the basement of my life until I forced myself to research
The facts of my disappearance once more.
Searching for the mistake, the misstep, the clue to His true whereabouts.
It's hard to lose something.
Especially if that something is important.
Keys,
Phone,
Wallet;
What I check for before I leave where I am,
Wherever that may be.
Person;
Never checked for that one
Before I departed.
Looking back,
I wish I had.
I should've checked that day.
That day.
A bomb went off.
A hole was blown.
Information was lost.
Information that was needed, though it was
If I had known.
If I had been sure of the
Person,
And it's true identity,
It's true location.
I would not have this jagged hole.
I would not have this pain.
The constant bright red blood,
Gushing from where Person should've been.
But wasn't.
Where is He?
Where has He gone?
He knew once.
A long time ago.
He printed it.
Filed it.
Committed it to memory.
But now,
It lays forgotten,
Lost in an angry sea of paper.
Organized well enough to be lost from His eye.
I have to find it.
Study Him again.
Have you seen this Person?