4338.212 · July 31, 2018 AD
Disappearing on Purpose
A voice on the radio says things Rose doesn't want to hear — words like "disappearance" and "Broken Hill" and "family of three." Mum kills the signal before the sentence finishes. The town they reach at dusk has rooms but won't give them one, and Mum doesn't fight it — because being remembered is worse than being cold. By nightfall they're parked in the darkest corner of a riverside clearing, eating cold food with no fire, surrounded by a silence that doesn't feel empty. It feels like it's watching.
A fractured radio broadcast cuts through the static and names what Rose has been afraid to think — that they are being looked for, that the world outside this car has noticed they are gone. Claire's reaction is immediate and visceral: she kills the radio and accelerates. When they reach a small town at dusk, every door is closed to them — a motel with empty rooms claims to be full, a bed and breakfast is shut for a function that doesn't exist, a caravan park stands abandoned. Claire doesn't push back, and eventually reveals why: people who let you in are people who remember your face. They press on to a riverside clearing where silent campervans sit in the dark and nothing moves. No fire is permitted. No voices carry. Rose eats cold food in the back seat and tries to remember what home felt like, but the image keeps dissolving. She whispers to Ribbons that they're not lost — just not found yet — and chooses to believe that being lost might be safer than being found by the wrong people.
