Been hearing about people ‘disappearing’ and wonder? Are these people being beamed up? Are these people falling through a hole in the earth? Are these people getting lost in a crowd?
Disappeared means becoming ‘invisible’ or ‘vanish’ or ‘cease to be’. How do people disappear?
Most of the references are people who are kidnapped for whatever purpose. Maybe it is human trafficking or recruitment to militias or enslavement for labor?
Everyday there are amber alerts and missing person posters from local authorities describing people whose family and friends say they have disappeared. This makes us all detectives examining everyone who walks by until the news that they are found. Some are never found.
Others may have not ‘disappeared’ but changed their names and lost connections with previous associations. When your friends or family have moved and you don’t know the current address or phone and can’t find them online, they have disappeared. No more Christmas cards.
Childhood classmates or former job associates or even romantic partners have gotten lost to time or interest. Reunions might bring you back together for a moment, but will lose contact again.
Some who have disappeared will never reappear. That teacher who taught you trigonometry is no long around. Neither is the preacher who married you or your auntie who showed you how to shuck beans. You won’t find them in the lost and found except through photographic recordings and memories.
On this date, fourteen years ago, my wife disappeared.
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