Alberto Ortiz

Hide and Seek
“Ready or not, here I come!” he said for the billionth time that morning. He felt they had been playing the game forever and he was beginning to think of a way of proposing playing some other game, perhaps one that did not require him to crawl in all fours searching under beds and tables. As usual, the game had been fun for a while. The kids, Sergio and Lena, four and 2½ respectively, still did not understand how to play the game correctly. They still insisted on hiding right in front of his eyes before he even started counting. They also continued to hide pretty much in the same places and showed surprise each time they were easily found. Their seeking strategies left a lot to be desired as well. There was no systematic search pattern, just a trial and error procedure that often led them to search in places they had already searched, leaving countless unsearched places untouched. The charming naiveté of Sergio and Lena made the hide and seek game both enchanting and addictive for their father, Augusto. Of course, even enchanting and addictive things could become a bit tiresome if done continuously for what seemed to Augusto, millennia.

The rules of the game were simple. If you are the seeker then you must count to ten, declare “Ready or not, here I come, and then search for the ones hiding around the house. If you were supposed to hide, then you could hide anywhere in the house, except in the basement or outside the house. This time it was his turn to search for the kids. Since he was getting tired, he decided to count lying down on the bed. When he was up to 3 he had closed his eyes and somehow, between 5 and 7 he must have fallen briefly asleep because he did not remember reaching 8.. Startled by a ringing telephone, he had woken up slightly disoriented and with the sour aftertaste of a familiar unpleasant dream, he hiding in the dark cave terrified, trying to control his breathing. Disorientation only lasted a few seconds and very quickly he remembered where he was and what his mission was: to find his two little kids in the house.

He got up from the bed and after announcing that he was coming, he started searching the house. He knew that Sergio almost always hid behind the big chair next to the lamp in the living room and that Lena usually hid not too far from Sergio, behind the other chair in the living room, the one closer to the front door. Augusto really wanted to finish playing the game as quickly as possible but at the same time he enjoyed pretending that he had no idea where the kids were. He always felt something squeeze his heart gently, lovingly, every time he pretended to look for them in improbable places, making them think he had no idea where they were. Hearing their poorly concealed laughter and whispers made his entire being smile from the inside. A smile germinated in the unequivocal belief that those wonderful excited noises coming from behind the living room chairs confirmed that true innocence still exist in this world of dark caves and unfathomable precipices.

“I wonder if they are hiding in the kitchen?” he said theatrically. “No, not in the kitchen”. “No, not under the kitchen table”. “Hmmm, perhaps they are in the dinning room”. “Perhaps, under the dinning room table?” Augusto moved slowly, making sure he made enough noise moving chairs and opening and closing doors. “I’m going to search the living room now”, he said. He went to the living room and checked behind the first chair while saying: “Maybe Sergio is here?” But no one was behind the chair. He then searched behind the second chair, the one closer to the door, but there was no one there either. Usually, when they were not behind the chairs they were in the closets in one of the rooms. He announced, “I’m going to search the closets in the rooms”. First, he checked Lena’s closet and after finding it empty he went to Sergio’s. Sergio’s closet was also empty. Augusto then paused momentarily to listen to the telltale sounds usually made by his kids. Augusto cocked his head to one side, then the other but he could not detect any sound. He had to admit, this was a bit strange. The next thought that crossed his mind was that the children had broken the rules and they had gone to the basement. This made Augusto upset. The children knew that “daddy doesn’t like going down to the basement”. They were too young to be able to understand why daddy avoided going down to the basement but he knew that someday they would be old enough to understand. The basement was simply too similar to a cave.

“Sergio and Lena”, please come out from wherever you are! You win, I give up”. There was a smile in his voice when he said this. He went to the top of the stairs leading to the basement and called out once again, “You know that you should not hide in the basement, that is breaking the rules”. He paused after this statement, but heard nothing. “Hey guys, come upstairs, it is time for a snack anyway. How about some of mommy’s chocolate? I’m sure she won’t mind if I tell her I gave you a piece”, he said. Absolute silence was the response he got. Augusto could feel how his pulse started to increase, he could feel it in his temples. Now, he was beginning to get upset. He could feel his muscles tensing, his breathing rapidly increasing. He was trying to keep his temper under control. He had always blamed his Hispanic heritage for his hot temper but somehow since he got back keeping his temper from flaring became almost a full-time job. Memories of his last fight with Lizy came back, like blows from a relentless hammer. It was impossible to keep away from his mind the awful things he shouted at his wife after a minor disagreement. “You need help”, she had said. “We need to go back to Dr. McQueen at the VA. He might be able to increase your medication”. This only enraged him even more. His rage reached unforeseen levels. Blind fury controlled his limbs like a macabre puppeteer, braking every cup and plate they owned, punching and kicking the door leading to the basement until it turned into splinters. It was after this that for the first time in their 10-year marriage, Lizy threatened to leave him, taking the kids with her. “Stop hiding Augusto”, she said. “Since you got back you’ve been hiding in this house, in the bottle in your stupid tantrums…” she continued. It wasn’t the threat what stopped Augusto in his tracks but the expression of terror in Lizy’s face and the children, hiding in their rooms. His rage turned to sadness and later depression. He promised her he would go back to the VA and that he would do anything to keep his family intact. Now, at the top of the stairs to the basement, he could feel his fury melting away, turning into something else. “Calm down Augusto, keep your cool”, Augusto thought. There was only one course of action, he had to go and search for the kids in the basement.

The stairs leading to the basement looked to Augusto like a gigantic throat, dark and cold. The mere thought of having to go down there sent shivers down his spine. He took the first step down and all the horror came seeping back. Suddenly, he was no longer in his home but in the cave, back on duty. His team had received orders to enter a particular cave and hunt down any terrorists hiding there. There was trustworthy intelligence that the terrorists in the cave were not just some minor cell but one protecting a high-ranking terrorist leader. For Augusto, that was his first mission. They entered the cave one at a time and silently. Augusto was the second one to enter, right behind his captain. The cave smelled like guano and something else he could not recognize. The moment he entered he felt in his gut that something was not right. Out of nowhere, a flash of bright light appeared in front of them, overwhelming Augusto’s night vision goggles. A split second later, the captain’s head exploded. Augusto was showered in blood, bone and pieces of gray matter. Gun fire erupted all around him. He was in shock. He ordered his body to move but it wouldn’t budge. His M-16, still clutched in his hands remained silent while the rest of the team fired at invisible phantoms hiding everywhere. It was clear they were waiting for them. Augusto was finally able to command his body to drop down. He crawled slowly until he found a fissure in the rock big enough to hide. The gun fire died down. He saw dark figures emerge from the blackness of the cave, like ghosts from another world. They were all wearing masks that protected them from something, perhaps the unidentified smell that now blended with that of human excrement, cordite and the metallic scent of blood. The masked figures made sure that no member of his team survived. In Hollywood movies, the good guy single-handedly eliminates the enemy one by one but this was not a Hollywood movie. Augusto was terrified of being discovered. He controlled his breathing and prayed his hiding place proved to be good enough. Unfortunately, his concealment did not last long. One of the dark figures turned his attention in his direction. It was impossible to know for sure if Augusto had been spotted since the mask covering the dark figure’s face occluded his eyes. The masked gunman then started to walk slowly towards him. Certain that he had been discovered, Augusto came out of the fissure he was in and started firing. It did not take long for the other masked figures to start shooting at him. He could feel the bullets impacting his Kevlar vest and his legs. He went down but somehow kept firing, then something hit is head and darkness embraced him like a mother embraces a long lost son.

Augusto woke up at a military hospital. He was told that he had been in a coma for weeks but then, miraculously, he regained consciousness. After this, he was sent home. He had lost his vision in his left eye. At home he experience acute symptoms of PTSD and received ongoing treatment at the VA hospital. The psychological and pharmacological therapy helped him deal with recurring nightmares of the cave, his difficulty dealing with anger and his fear of dark places. Now, he had to go to a dark place to find his children.

With trembling hands he flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. “Sergio, Lena, come out guys, it is time to play some other game!” Augusto’s heart was pounding but he knew he had to search the basement thoroughly. He went back upstairs and found a flashlight in a kitchen drawer. With almost uncontrollable trepidation he searched the basement but found nothing, and then he thought about the crawl space. “Maybe they went there”, he said. He moved slowly forward, brandishing the flashlight as a weapon. He looked in the crawl space but the kids were not there. “I can’t imagine they’ll be down here in the dark”, he muttered so he convinced himself that they were not there.

He went upstairs taking the steps two at a time. When he got to the top he realized he was panting hard. This disconcerted him because he knew he was in good shape. He did strength training regularly and ran several miles each week. But now, not only he was panting hard but his legs ached from the effort. He thought that perhaps his almost panic attack had something to do with his tiredness, “this is what happens when you spend all your adrenaline in a few minutes”, he thought.

Augusto then thought that maybe the kids went outside. The realization of the danger outside made his knees weaken even more. There was an old well outside in the back yard. He went to the back door and went outside. The yard looked untidy even though he remembered mowing the grass not too long ago. He ran and on his way to the well he jumped over a small bike but somehow he just didn’t make it. His left foot tangled on the frame and he went down in all fours. His lack of stamina was astounding to him but he paid no attention to it. Instead, he got up and went directly to the well. The old well was covered by a heavy metal plank. There was no way that a four-year old and a two-year old could lift that plank. He tried lifting it himself but it was too heavy. He breathed a sigh of relief, but only for a second since a number of sinister thoughts gathered in his head like a flock of vultures circling a wounded horse. “They could have gone out into the street”, he exclaimed with a shivering voice. He ran down the side of the house and reached the front of the house. The street was deserted. He knocked on several neighbor’s doors but no one was home. He felt sick and dizzy. He then thought, “Augusto, take it easy, don’t panic. Just go back into the house. I’m sure they are there. You probably did not look hard enough.” Augusto started to walk to the back of the house. He remembered that the front door was locked but not the back. He deliberately, walked slowly, trying to convince himself that there was no reason to panic. As he reached the back of the house, he noticed the tipped over bike. It was a blue bicycle. He had never seen that bike before. Sergio’s bike was red, a gift from grandma for his fourth birthday. Lena was too young to have a bike like that. He then assumed the bike belong to one of the neighbor’s kids.

He went up the stairs and opened the back door. He now started a systematic search of the house focusing on any detail that could give him an idea of where the kids went. He looked around the kitchen and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, except the absence of the cat and the dog. He hadn’t noticed it before but he hadn’t seen the animals in a while either. He thought, “Did the kids take them along? That makes no sense at all, unless… Lizy came back and took the kids as well as the animals”. He thought that maybe Lizy finally had left him. He thought that perhaps he was asleep for longer than he had estimated, instead of being asleep for a minute or two he probably slept for a lot longer. He wanted to consult his watch but instead he stared at his empty arm. He did not remember taking his watch off. The clock on the wall said 11:39 am. He then tried to remember when they started to play. He couldn’t be sure. “Was I asleep for two minutes or two hours?” he thought. He felt his throat constricting, he fought hard to keep the tears from escaping but he was unsuccessful. He heard someone sobbing and he realized it was him. He ran to the children’s room and checked their drawers. They were full of clothes. Shirts, shorts, underwear, everything was there. Their toys were in their rooms. However, he noticed that some of the toys littering the floor were unknown to him. “When did Sergio get a brand new race track for his little cars?” he thought. “When did Lena became interested in dinosaurs?” “Perhaps grandma and/or grandpa got them the new toys”, he concluded. He thought that if Lizy had taken the kids and left him, she would have at least taken some clothes with them.

He then went to his bedroom, opened up the closet door and saw only women’s clothes. His clothes were the ones missing. Now he was really baffled. “What is happening here?” he said out loud. “Is it possible I’m still asleep?” he muttered. He left the bedroom and distractedly went to the dinning room. He noticed a picture in the middle of the table. The picture was of two smiling people in front of a gorgeous waterfall. The two people in the picture were strangers, an elderly couple. Although they were strangers, there was something familiar about them. Augusto could not tell where he had seen them before. Lizy must have brought the picture because he certainly did not put it there.

Still thinking about the people in the mysterious picture, Augusto turned to go into the living room when he noticed a door to his left. This was not the door to the closet where they kept the vacuum cleaner and other cleaning implements. With great hesitation, Augusto opened the door to discover a stairwell leading up. “What is this”, he cried. “Am I loosing my mind?” “Those damn terrorists poisoned me in that cave, that’s why they were wearing masks”, he thought. He then remembered that no toxins were found in his blood after being treated at the military hospital. “Maybe they used something new, something that cannot be easily detected by a blood test”, he said out loud. He remembered that someone told him at the hospital that moments after getting shot in the cave, a second team had entered, neutralized the enemy and saved his life.

Gingerly, Augusto took the first step up the stairs. He called out the kids but there was no response from them. When he reached the top, he noticed he was out of breath. At 32 and in top physical shape, Augusto was baffled by his weakness. He found himself in a nice bright room that faced west. Pictures covered the walls. Some pictures showed him in uniform, some were of the kids and Lizy and some were of people he had never seen before: a beautiful young woman with big brown eyes holding a small baby, a tall young man lifting triumphantly what appeared to be some sort of trophy, the elderly couple from downstairs in different social events. None of what was happening to him made any sense at all, however, none of that nonsense could hide the unquestionable fact that his two children were missing and he was responsible. He could not hide that he had failed first as a soldier and then as a father and husband. He could not hide the fact that he had been living his life afraid of the past and even more terrified of the future. He was frightened that he would fail to protect his family from the dangers of this world, that just like in a cave, lurk unseen. Augusto collapsed on his knees and wept like a child in the brightly lit room.

Augusto realized he had to call the police. He wasn’t going to find his beloved children in the house. He stood up and turned to go down the stairs when he caught a glimpse of someone staring at him. He screamed and jumped behind the bed in the room. His body felt like a piece of heavy metal stuck to the floor. He tried getting up, but he found out he couldn’t. “Who was that?” he thought. He realized it was the old man from the picture. He had no shirt; he was barefooted and wore only pajama bottoms. From behind the bed Augusto yelled, “Who the hell are you?”, “what have you done with my children?” He got no reply from the old man. Augusto decided to take a peek so he turned his head in the direction of the old man and what he saw made him gasp.

She entered the house when she heard shouts. Without hesitation she moved swiftly to the stairwell that led to the top floor. She found him on the floor, behind the bed, open mouthed with his face covered in tears. He looked even more frail than usual without his shirt.

Augusto couldn’t stop from staring at the man in front of him; however, it wasn’t a man but a reflection. The old man he had noticed lurking behind the door was no other than his own reflection in the mirror.

Someone just entered the room; he was still on the floor and turned his head slightly to find the young lady with the big brown eyes standing there. “Dad, it is me, Lena”. Augusto was speechless. Lena approached Augusto slowly and kneeled on the floor next to him. Augusto then said, “Lena?”

Lena looked at Augusto not with the eyes of a grown woman with two children and two grandchildren of her own, but the eyes of a little girl. In a flash she saw in her mind’s eye her now 82 year-old father as a much younger man, the man he used to be, an indefatigable man. The man who put her to bed and told her stories, the man who played dolls and cars with her and her brother, the man whose mere presence scared all monsters away. She knew for certain that that young man was somewhere hidden in that other old man’s body. The body of a man whose brain stopped producing the chemicals that made him who he was. Augusto had conquered his post-war traumas to later find out that another enemy had lined up to made battle with him. This second enemy had reached inside, stolen Augusto and hid him somewhere, in the cave of the past. Augusto’s family had been seeking him relentlessly and sometimes they get a glimpse of him. Lately these glimpses had been less frequent.

When Lizy died, Augusto then in his 60’s, was still Augusto. He refused to sleep alone in the same bed he shared with the love of his life for so many years. Everything in his old bedroom reminded him of her so he added a room to the house, one as far away as possible from painful memories. He loved the room’s brightness and warmth so much that he spent most of the day there. Lena and Sergio used to call the top room “dad’s hiding place”. At about the same time Lizy died, Lena got divorced and Augusto asked her to move in with her two small children. The house was just too big for him alone. Sergio had moved to another state a few years earlier but visited often. After Lena’s children moved away and got married, they had children of their own. Lena’s grandchildren, now 6 and 4, stayed over very often so they had their own rooms in the house with clothes and toys.

Since Augusto got sick a few years back she had been thinking of switching rooms with him. At 82 and ill, the steep stairs were becoming a problem as well as a danger. She knew she had to bring Augusto back to his old bedroom, but doing so felt like she was surrendering, like she was finally admitting that time was winning the game and there were no more places to hide.

Earlier that morning, Lena had gone out momentarily after receiving a phone call from her daughter. On her way out she had seen Augusto dozing on the bed downstairs; however, she did not wake him to let him know she was coming back soon. Now in retrospect she thought maybe she should have.

Lena helped Augusto up from the floor and gently assisted him getting on the bed. As she was tucking him in, she noticed a ghost of a smile forming on Augusto’s thin lips as he mumbled something barely audible. She got her ear closer to his mouth and thought she heard him say, although she was not completely sure, “Ready or not, here I come”.