My Body is a Cage and Other Stories

Ezra sits with her until she cries herself out. Something about him makes it not
embarrassing. Maybe it’s his prescription glasses.When the sky turns a bruised purple, they set
up camp.
“What’s the plan?” Ezra asks, poking the embers ofthe fire with a stick.
“Watch the sky.”
“What if she’s not up there?”
“She is.”
“What if she isn’t?”
“Then we’ll drive around and look for her in the morning.”
Ezra photographs her as she changes the battery inher mother’s internal magnetometer,
which detects magnetic anomalies that accompany UFOsightings. The firelight dances on her
face. She has the kind of intensity of someone raisedby wolves.
“You look primordial,” Ezra mutters, looking throughthe shots. He offers her the camera,
but she shakes her head.
The rest of the night she lies on her back on a blanket,looking through binoculars into the
stars. There are thousands upon thousands of themout here. Every time she detects movement,
her heart freezes. It always turns out to be an airplaneor a satellite. If it were Them, the lights
wouldn’t travel in a straight line. They like to zigzagand dance across the sky, as if teasing the
humans below. Maybe They’re laughing. We’re in yoursky and there’s nothing you can do about
it. We’ll take you and your parents and your childrenand your lovers and if we return them,
they’ll never go back to the way they were. Around2 A.M., the sky is replaced by the red fabric
of Ezra’s t-shirt as he steps in front of her binoculars.
“See anything?”