She looks at the map and visualizes a set of self-replicating tiles. First, a set of simple shapes conjured from the dusty streets.
She thinks of the homonym, reptiles, and briefly considers ones that would fit each tile—two snakes, a turtle, a lazing lizard. Then combines them to create larger versions of the same basic shapes.
And again...
She leads Mojo around the block across the street, past the sawmill and park office. Then the larger block to Union Street and back. Larger still, through the parking lot. As she searches, she contemplates possibilities, calculates probabilities. Head injury. Amnesia. Stroke. Altered state. No. Occam's razor—she probably just fell.
The hands of Arizona's watch race around as her search expands. North to King Street. East past the schoolhouse. Wind whistles through weathered clapboards. Its pitch plagues her, mocks her feeble efforts to tune it out.
They traverse west again, through town and beyond, back to the cemetery knoll. At a large monument with a good view of town, she fetches the binoculars from her pack and scans for Mom—white shirt, jeans, medium height, dark hair in a ponytail. She recalls the red fleece jacket tied around her waist and starts over. Past the schoolhouse she scans, into the area closed to the public, to the stamp mill. She can barely make out the tiny ant people half a mile distant. Three of them, in a tight group. As if two are helping the one in the middle, the one in the white shirt. Mom? Arizona's insides twist. Her eyes strain to see a red jacket around the waist, but the ant people are too far away.
She races back through town, dragging Mojo whenever he stops or goes the wrong way. But when they arrive, she doesn't see anyone. She runs along the verge of the closed area and tries to fend off the unbidden sensations—weighted chest, prickled skin—but none of her safety poems will come to mind.
As she approaches a dilapidated shack that lists like a small boat in heavy seas, an older ranger steps around the corner and startles her. "Hello, miss," he says with a deep voice. "Are you looking for someone?"
She takes a deep breath, braces for the interaction. Maybe he'll be more helpful than the last ranger.
"Yes, my mom." She glances up at the tall man's caterpillar eyebrows. "We were supposed to meet at the church at four and it's almost six now." Arizona recounts the details of her search (though not its Euclidean structure) and the three people she had seen from the cemetery.
The ranger fetches the radio from his belt, steps four paces away, and relays everything. Arizona's eyes are drawn to him. First to his eyebrows, then to his light-blue eyes—as if his eyebrows are lures and his eyes the hooks. Looking at people's eyes is okay as long as they're not looking back.
He signs off and comes back. Her eyes return to his top button.
"Nobody has reported finding an injured person. But the park closes in a few minutes and we can conduct a search once all visitors have left. Do you live locally?"
Arizona doesn't reply. She looks around, as if searching for the answer. "Miss, do you live locally?"
"No, we're camping in our trailer, down in the valley."
"I see," he says. "Do you want to wait at park headquarters while we search?"
"Can we help?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Sorry." Arizona nods. Mojo whines. "What's your dog's name?"
"Mojo."
"Is he hungry?"
"Probably. He's usually had dinner by now. And it's been dog days since he ate."
"Dog days?" he asks.
"Yeah, if one year is like seven years for a dog, then one day is like seven to him. He eats twice per human day, but it's probably been like three dog days since he had breakfast."
"That's funny. I never thought of it that way."
Of course you haven't, she thinks. Nobody thinks like her, except her dad. "You probably wouldn't think it was funny if you were a dog."
"No, probably not." He chuckles.
