State Fair

“McKenzie?” Lidia glanced around for her friend and their brothers, Eli and Fernando. The commercial exhibits were crowded, and the four of them had agreed at the outset that they should stay together. Lidia couldn’t imagine how they’d disappeared during the one or two minutes she’d paused to examine a display of jewelry.

Noise echoed off the concrete floor as fairgoers and hawkers competed to make themselves heard in their individual conversations. Lidia turned around in a complete circle, slowly, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of her companions. Walking more quickly, she examined faces as she moved through the throng, hoping to see someone familiar. “Eli? Fernando?” Lidia’s concern grew, as she felt particularly responsible for her younger brother, hoping he had not, in turn, become separated from the other two.

A shaft of bright light guided Lidia to the outside entrance of the building, and she stepped into the sunshine. Confused, she looked up and down the walkway, not recognizing her surroundings. “This isn’t where we came in,” she muttered. “Which way should I go to get back to where we started?” It appeared as though more people congregated to the left, so she headed in that direction, unsure where to begin looking. Was she decreasing her chances of finding them by leaving the building?

Lidia approached a crossroads and looked around in dismay. Streams of people were entering a building, apparently the same building she had just exited. Perhaps the others were waiting for her by the main entrance. A sense of urgency propelled her forward, but out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a vendor selling outlandish hats with feathers. “If I wasn’t afraid of missing them, I’d stop and get one,” she told herself. “Then this wouldn’t happen again.”