Her name is Isabel. Izzy to the people that know her. She is six years-old.

Their shadows stretch long as Doroteo and the men drive towards the approaching sun.

She sits, as she does every day, alone, staring out her bedroom window towards the open courtyard.

Imperfections and irregularities in the road's surface cause the four traveling men's shadows to elongate and splash a hard, dirty puddle across its pock ridden face.

Izzy suffers from an infliction not yet invented. This disinhibition affects all areas of her being down to her very psyche. It pushes her awareness towards levels that would shatter most being's thresholds if exposed for prolonged periods.

Many jagged edges and broken crevices snag the willowy but spiky black fabric. It's the hard edges of the not quite billowing capes of the young rescuers that allow the road's many tiny claws to tear and dig their way into the impenetrable darkness. They grab hold of the sharp creases of the shadows' filled in outline. If not for that bit of help, the shadows flowing spread's constant to and fro, much less its rapid accumulation of acceleration would never allow for anything to capture its breathless soul. The road's minuscule shards and its in-numerous pits attach themselves into the space created by the black thread's inner stitching that make up the men's shadows.

That explanation is in fact a fabrication. Anyone with any sense of logic knows that shadows are not woven with many strings of raw black thread.

The gaps within a shadow's folds, that the sun fails to connect, imperceptible to the human eye, are a direct result of the earth's magnetic field.

For example, the day Izzy was born, she retained perfect diction and a complete ability to recite and communicate with her people in their own voice. In order to do this, while still in her mother's womb, Isabel pushed past her mother's internal harmonies and guttering by using her mother's own body as a kind of natural internal audio amplifier to listen in, lurk, study and learn her culture's secret ways.

Izzy's awareness also lends itself towards a natural inclination towards the studies of the mystic arts, that of science and mathematics. Her comprehension of these studies is unparalleled up to this point in recorded time. But her real passion is the creative arts; painting, drawing, storytelling and music. Getting very little from her surroundings,

Isabel decides to configure her own.

Sitting in her wooden chair, seat slicked back after years of constant planning, the same chair that her family needs to remind their only child three times a day to expel herself from in order to help rejuvenate the circulation in her lower bodily regions so as not to allow blood to have a chance to accumulate and congregate long enough to appear as sores on her back and legs, which decidedly coincides with her daily feedings so there's no real cause for consternation, Izzy designs her stories.

She works them back and forth across her mind, over and over, scrubbing them, trying to produce the perfect story, the perfect collection of tales in preparation for the introduction of herself to her family, her village, her world. Isabel waits for the proper time, the right moment, the correct age in which she would be allowed to speak in a manner of her choosing while not frightening the people of her village.

Speaking after years of non-speech would be bad enough, Izzy realized even at this tender age, but she figures, if her age matches her words, the people of her village will not find them problematic and will find a pathway leading towards accepting her, be proud of her and maybe, some day, even listen to her words. In order to do this, all she needed to do was to provide them a key to the gate's entrance.

As unique and wonderful as Isabel is, as beautiful as her stories are and the beauty that arises from her desire to share her creations made from loneliness, she is not without failings. The first stems from her lack of control of how words flow from her mouth, meaning, she speaks the way the people around her speak, that of an adult. That might fly as a young teenager but Izzy knew that she still had several years yet to go.

While knowing all this, Isabel isn't able to interact with people as a person of her own age, that of an adolescent. Concentrating so much on her future causes Izzy to forget or not even realize that a child's early formable years are the most crucial and critical towards its development as a grounded individual. An appearance of stability needs to be established and preserved in order to complete the illusion of normalcy.

This early, postnatal development would provide the means in which the other, less aware folks could accept Isabel as one of their own rather than something else entirely.

It would also facilitate her ascent towards adulthood as she blossoms into a fully mature flower with all her majestic, radiant bloom on display. Healthy petals grown from seeds quarantined in the progression towards self-gratification can only stem from perusal of a person's passions and desires.

With familiarity as Isabel's family guide stone, her impermeable barrier might someday produce a crack and provide enough space in order for a rose to grow.

This leads to Izzy's second and arguably her major fault, an incomprehensibility that she attaches to the understanding on how her community works. From arrogance branching from awareness and not by pride, Isabel segregates herself through non-involvement which causes the girl to be isolated and feel alone. Feelings and emotions are something of a weakness of Izzy's. Even though she believes she knows what it is that makes people tick, human psychology is not her strong suite.

The magnetic field is created by the earth's rotation and the moon's gravitational force. Its powerful downward draw affects the very iron and metal particles that lives within every object, even our shadows. This powerful, all inclusive attractive towards the ground absorbs the very heavy metal from the skies and plants them firmly onto the earth's surface. Anything that is in direct contact or underneath these metallic particles will be trapped and thus, share a fate similar to that of its airborne cousins. This is how invisible gaps are created within the hearts of shadows.

Subtracting these floating, ethereal particles from the air and depositing them along the road also allows for dust replenishment that has been blasted away from many years of traveling footsteps as well as compensating for the lost of its dry epidermis due to the harsh effects of the wind's aging bluster.

These gaps then allow for the road's many claws to dig into the shadow's dark membrane. Tiny hooks pierce its quiet flesh and stretch it along the ground or whichever surface the shadow and the object that's attached to it happen to be adjacent.

These claws, while seemingly destructive are actually science's way of maintaining order in our universe of disorder. They help preserve the integrity of the shadows form.

While shadows seem dense and have the appearance of rigidity, they are actual quite vulnerable and require a great deal of succor. Any light that wanders near their sharp edges will instantly cause the dark matter to fade away. But before dematerialization can ensue, these invisible, innumerable counts of hands calculate and then compensate for the reduction in mass by affixing whatever is needed to maintain the shadows natural ebb and flow, usually towards the opposite, parallel side.

Adhesion is also created during this scientifically produced symbiosis. Rather than slow forward mobility, this bonding agent cements humans to this practical world. It provides stability for any individual that clings to it. A perpetuity that the earth's magnetic fields arrange for humans gives them a floor in which to cast a shadow and a post to tether by.

This attachment to reality is something Isabel is having a hard time coming to grips with. It isn't that she's selfish or aloof, she just doesn't comprehend. Her hyper-awareness ensures her enclosure from society. Her picturesque living window frame is her only exposure to nature's finery.

Were it up to Isabel, she'd roam the fine outdoors until nightfall and then snuggle up within the leaves and dried moss she collected during the day's earlier gatherings, but life intervenes, as always, and Izzy has to deal with her reality.

Every time a bird flies by, as each gust tosses fluttering wings across it's etch board, Izzy's daydreams collapse upon themselves before they have a chance to materialize and burn their image onto her mental front. Each flap represents another day without hope. Every singing bird reminds her how sad life is and how she may never have a reason
to speak.

Her mental deterioration has not yet been noticed. Amongst her many but hard to distinguish ailments, it's just another misunderstood symptom of an already troubled youth.

It's this same attraction that grounds humans to earth's rugged crust that guides our natural inclinations towards order and unity rather than chaos and disruption. Doroteo's nature is intrinsically developed towards recognizing and following his own internal inclinations. He learned early on that if something felt right, it probably was and common sense dictates that it should be followed. The common in common sense was sorely lacking in his society Doroteo was starting to realize as he approached adulthood.

It wasn't common sense, however, that gave him pause as a bend littered with trees appeared in the fast approaching horizon. Whatever the cause, it was so overpowering that Doroteo came to a complete stop just as the bend straightened itself, spilling out back towards the heightening sun, in the direction where hope for finding the missing boy rests.

To someone as aware as Isabel, it would be hard to convince them of much of anything if they believed to have already reached a firm conclusion. Once of these conclusions that Izzy suffers from is that of premonition. She believes that after just a moment's gander towards an individual she can see all of their life's possible outcomes with the prominent one popping to the fore of her mind. This is the future that will lead to that particular individual's death that Izzy happens to be reading. For instance, Isabel knew the day in which Doroteo's father would disappear and never come back. She even woke up early to watch him span his final trail as his family rested blissfully unaware that their lives would forever be changed. She watched how Doroteo and his family became frantic for over two weeks before the body was discovered Doroteo's mother in particular was in straits as she was seven months pregnant with her fifth child. Doroteo was the oldest at thirteen at that point. Izzy never saw Doroteo cry. This made an impression on her for he was the only one not to shed tears during the entire ordeal or ever since for that matter. He was the only on that didn't cry, that is, except of one.

That other was Isabel herself.

Doroteo's apprehension surprises him as it courses down and settles around the base of his spine. He nudges his horse off the dirt road towards the trees outskirts. The other men travel a distance before they realize Doroteo had discontinued his part in their shared journey. The 35 year-old man, the one who had engaged in that lively debate with Doroteo's mother this morning and one of the younger men remain on the road as a third figure heads back to see what had garnered his childhood friend's attention.

Doroteo hear the hoofs plodding of his friends approach as he peered deep past the tree's clearing into the forest's wooden web work. He looked over his left shoulder to acknowledge his friend and raised his hand as to warn him to slow his descent.

His friend slides his horse next to Doroteo's "What do you see? Is it Sergio?"

"No, nothing. I feel a presence though. Don't you?" Doroteo's senses strike him at fundamental level. It is his survival instincts kicking in. He's sure that they're not alone.

"I don't feel anything." Doroteo's friend gives his honest answer. He trusts his long time friend's instincts.

His friend, while more apt to display his excitability, is also prone to frequent, and at times, violent outbursts. This leads to the suffering of his community as he tries to appease his insatiable hunger for attention. He miraculously manages to escape repercussions for mean-spirited and often times vengeful behavior that he directs towards people, creatures or even objects in which he feels have slighted him in some manner.

He dissipates the bad air by spreading a contagious agent of joyousness that infects rather than feeds the people surrounding him. Viral impulses shock his communities' immune system and replaces good sense with good will. This impairs their ability to strive and shake off his polarizing charge of disharmony and allows for acclimation of discontent to subside so as to provide status quo an opportunity to stabilize its equilibrium before his next outburst has a chance to spark and ignite the air around him.

Simply stated, his family and friends put up with his insolence and trash talking machismo because he makes them laugh as well it being the best for the community. His keen sense of humor has kept him out of trouble up until this point in time but his hair trigger approach towards life will more than likely prove to be his downfall as he continues a lifetime of shooting off his mouth.

However, none of this was on display as he answered his friend. There was nothing to be seen or felt emitting from the forest. Even the horses sensed nothing; it was Doroteo himself that forced his eyes to stare past the woods in a vain attempt to detect what it was that was troubling him.

For Izzy never cried. She lacked the fundamentals for understanding and displaying normal human emotions. Isabel believed that emotions were just words to help describe and to notate certain feelings that reside within all humans, but she was unable to attach the names to the feelings that she experiences. It's not for a lack of wanting; the relationship just doesn't present itself to young Izzy.

Her father, who plays traditional folk music on his accordion for Isabel's comfort twice a week, is caring but does not display much emotion. Her mother is much the same when it comes to displaying her own emotions. After surviving two miscarriages, Isabel's parents, especially her mother, had given up hope towards having their own child.

Even though she was six weeks early, Izzy proved not to be a difficult delivery nor was she a problem child during her early upbringing. Isabel was a bundle of joy as first reception. Her presence was a priceless gem, a prayer thought unanswered. At first, her constant smiles formed a blinding tundra that provided a clean slate in which all pervious struggles were erased. But then the smiles turned icy with concern which snowballed into consternation and then triggered an avalanche of fatal resolve to disengage and slide down the slope of discontent over Isabel's mental well being.

It was Izzy's stillness that frightened her parents. Not a single utterance once under her parents constant supervision. This undesired and negative call of attention was not something Isabel had anticipated while considering her introduction to her new and final home. She felt her presence was enough to satisfy her parents need for a family unit.

Izzy would explain when the time was right, to her family and neighbors why she stayed still for such a long course of time.

What Isabel couldn't understand was when a dream gets shattered one time too many, the pieces become scattered and nearly impossible to collect and arrange back to a whole that in any way resembles its former self. No single one thing can mend where scars have already marred.

"The sun cuts through the trees and the light reveals nothing. While the forest is dense with tress, the trunks themselves are too narrow to allow anything to hind behind them." Doroteo's friend had an uncanny knack of cutting to the chase, forgoing all other conclusions when the obvious one presents itself. Doroteo knew this and immediately felt the pressure in the base of his spine disappear when hearing his friend's wisdom.

Smiling at his friend's frankness, "You're right, but someone is watching us, watching me right now. Right there." Doroteo points towards the forest and nothing else. Other people would consider him a fool but not his friend. He knows that his people are of the land and when the land offers you an answer without meaning, oftentimes the question can only be found within yourself.

"If it's not Sergio, it's not important. We should go. Maybe we'll be lucky and find the boy asleep after panhandling for a free meal. Then you can share your mother's treats with me instead of wasting it on him." Always looking out for himself, always looking for an angle, Doroteo's friend was always more serious than not in his half hearted jokes and his crooked smile allowed his charms to outshine his undesirable attributes. Doroteo looked upon those extroverted attributes as an asset rather than a liability. His friend always let his intentions be known, no bones were made, and his proclivity towards speaking first and consideration second, if at all, made him a sound board to bounce ideas across. Sometimes wise words can be surmised from rash mumblings brought by unprocessed thought.

Deciding a smile best expresses his feelings towards his friend's selfish comment, a smile if verbalized would more than likely be taken as insult rather than good natured ribbing, for his friend's constitution was of a delicate nature in matters concerning himself and wasn't apt for handling criticism in any form, Doroteo gives his horse's reins a tug and swings back towards the road.

Izzy's mother, nearly driven to despair by her second miscarriage, only wants the best for her husband and daughter. She can't understand why her healthy child displays only silence. At first, it wasn't disconcerting, a quiet child is a happy child, until one day her father happened to pass by her crib and found Isabel choking on a wooden toy. A small piece had broken off and lodged itself in the girl's windpipe. Isabel's face was turning dark as her brain was grasping for oxygen when her father grabbed her by the legs and held her upside down. After a few mighty shakes, Izzy managed to cough up the offending intrusion but was left uncertain as to whether the cure was better or worse in comparison with the ailment.

Ever since then, Isabel looked up to her father in ways she never thought possible. When Izzy, there in her crib, nearly out of air, realized she wasn't in complete control of herself and outside forces could and would ply its ugly influence towards her well being and exploit her delicate condition whenever it seemed fit, gave up. An overwhelming sense of total helplessness was immediately replaced by a complete sensation of feeling free. It was as if nothing mattered or won't soon enough.
Once her father prevents Isabel from choking on the offending piece, Izzy's spirit of freedom dissipates and melds and melts into sensorial relief as an afferent vessel opens wide and allows life to flood back into her system.

Isabel's new and sudden sense of life quashes any fear of death because this moment represents a major forward progression towards Izzy's mode of thinking. This near fatal miss causes Izzy to include herself whenever she evaluates a quandary. Acknowledgment of death allows her to look at her life and the others around her anew and instead of seeing herself separate from the others, she now includes herself within her group and relishes the feeling of belonging.

She revels in this new sense of self expression so much so that she almost reveals to her parents that she can speak with them. Isabel's want for inclusion was overbearing and she wasn't far along in the formulations of her new plans that her reality was shattered once and for good. Isabel had discovered the path that leads to her death. The premonitions of herself have begun.

Before Doroteo could make much headway towards the two men still waiting on the dusty road his friend reached him, "Whatever it was, I'm glad it wasn't the boy. I almost hope we don't find him." Doroteo kept his pace to just a trot, "That's not proper." He knew that his friend was serious.

"You didn't see Gato this morning, you were still passed out. Once he found Sergio missing, he flew into a rage and tore his home apart. Your mother was right, he's too controlling." Doroteo's friend's sincerity was the reason he accepted his friend's occasional outbursts, "I can't see how being lost and alone is good for anyone's well being most of all Sergio's." Doroteo felt this to be true but had a hard time coming up with an argument that could refute his friend's logic.

"It's the wrong thing to wish I know, but maybe the gypsies could provide a home more fit for the boy than his parent's can." Doroteo smiled at his friend's sentiment. If everyone thought the way his friend did and express themselves to the others around them, maybe there wouldn't be a need for the boy to run in the first place.

What Isabel doesn't realize is that these premonitions of hers, the visions of peoples' deaths, including her own, are only the worst possible outcome that she could let herself imagine. They represent just one fate amongst many countless others.

A person's destiny is like a deck of playing cards fanned across a felt table. Pick a card from an unshuffled deck, any card, and you'll pick a card not much different for the one directly touching it on either side. This happens from the two to the Ace and then repeats itself in the same fashion but with a new suite.

In Isabel's hands, she forgoes all cards but the Ace and all suites except spades and this leaves Izzy with nothing but a deck of 52 cards of death. Since she believes that death inevitable, Izzy feels that her fatal, final vision must always be the winning hand. What she doesn't know is every card in every deck leads to death and each card represents a reality from good to worst that any individual can follow. The ace of spades represents the worst possible of all outcomes and should be avoided at all costs as opposed to being something to form a winning hand.

Speaking of expressing themselves,

"What happened? A possum chase you off as you were shaking yourself off?"

It never changes, more insults, more laughter, Doroteo was expecting this and was prepared,

"No, I thought I saw your wife with some pig and then I remembered you were with me."

Talking about the man's wife was not a safe place to tread. Doroteo continues,

"When I approached this loathsome creature, I could see it clearly and it would have been main spirited to call it your wife. For what I thought was your wife was in fact a pig itself and the thing attached to it was its suckling. It could not have been your wife no matter the similarities for we all know that your wife is incapable of providing for her offspring."

This rolled off Doroteo's tongue in a surprisingly satisfying manner. He was most pleased but the 35 year-old man was not, but Doroteo didn't care, it was payback for harassing his mother earlier in the day. The man knew this but Doroteo's unpredictable aggression always caught him off guard. He enjoyed pushing the boy's buttons but did not appreciate his brashness towards displaying his thoughts about his elders. His mother allowed this and in their small village, that was all that mattered.

What made it worse for the man was that no one would come to his defense when someone lashed out at him. They had the gall to place blame on him for inviting such maltreatment into his life. The man's community no longer valued men such as him. Only boys like Doroteo would be left and the village would find itself without a real guardian to look over.

What froze Isabel in her progression was a vision of someone else in her future. A single vision featuring two participants, herself and a boy her age, appeared to Izzy not long after her mishap with the broken toy. She knows this boy and immediately comes to understand that she loves him, always have and always will. This premonition blind-sides Izzy with happiness, a sensation felt only partially and very rarely in her short but lonely life.

This warm and all encompassing feeling is fleeting for it doesn't take long for Isabel to start peering deeper towards their future together. As always, she fails to see that she already holds the winning hand and trades in her cards until she finds the hand with her favorite card, the ace of spades.

"Perhaps it was a unicorn for you to stud with."

Doroteo couldn't tell if the man was raging or not. His poker face proved to be a hard read, but the boy felt good, his mother taught him how to bite back.

"Old man,

Putting tight on his reins,

"It's time to go."

Doroteo takes off down the road to make up for lost time. His horse pummels the others with dirt as they try and catch up.

The boy that Izzy is in love with is Sergio. She watches as he takes care of some unknown object that he keeps hidden away in a weaved basket. The girl's heart grows fond at the boy's tender nurturing. If Isabel could only have one wish, she would be the secret object that gains all his attention.

She knows the measures in which the boy goes through in order to maintain his secret; the beatings by his father's hands, his mother's constant insults, the days without food, all serve to punish the boy's malcontent. Sergio's parents, as a matter of course, treat their son as if he were already an adult. Much expectations and a delinquency of leniency leads to their child to rebel without much cause other than Sergio just doesn't like to be hampered without justification.

Isabel's heart nearly breaks each time she sees the boy running to his room and crying as he's being punished another day without food. This is accentuated by Izzy imagination of the bits of food that the boy risks sneaking away in order to feed the object of his affection.

Isabel has waited her entire life for the proper time to speak up. When she saw the Sergio sneak off in the middle of the night and enter one of the caravans, she knew it was the right moment to declare her love for the boy and show the world what see was capable of doing. Instead, she did nothing. Nothing was said and nothing was proven.

Nothing happened other than the maintaining of the status quo, which only sought to wrap its hands around Izzy's neck and strangle her in its indefinite grip.

Isabel will forever wonder why she never spoke up.

The traveling shadows shrink in shape and size as blue curtains unfold and reveal the sun splashed across its backdrop. Hoisted by invisible pulleys controlled by steady hands, our sun travels upwards toward the northern sky, through billows of clouds, up pass rafters of beams, sun and moon alike, to perform its daily pious recital.