CODE: A Hidden Language

Family Without A Home

            Ty and his group kind of just took me in. I didn’t have anywhere to go, what with the whole amnesia thing going on. It was weird at first, if you want me to be honest—which, I suppose, you obviously would. It wasn’t easy though. Admittedly, some things came back to me easier than others. One of the weirdest things though was the fact that my body still remembered how to do things, even if my mind didn’t. Muscle memory can be pretty amazing but the disconnection between the mind and body can be pretty disorienting at first. Intellectually, I was far from inept. Rather than having to relearn things, it seemed that my mind only needed triggers before recalling information. It was hard to tell what would trigger the memories though. For example, when I finally remembered my birthday, it was a song that Mary, one of the girls in the group, was singing that caused me to remember. Perhaps it was the way she sang the innocent nursery rhyme or maybe it was the absent-minded manner with which she did it. I still don’t know but I was glad that I could remember; it’s hard going a year without even knowing your birthday. Another two years after and, for the most part, I was a fully functioning member of society. For the most part mainly because, I wasn’t really sure who I was outside of this life and I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to know.

Life wasn’t easy though, for the group I mean. We were, after all, just a bunch of kids without a home. Each of us had a different story, a different rhyme and reason for how we ended up on the streets. But, truth be told, this wasn’t what any of us wanted. For most of us, we were forced to choose this life, forced to live on the streets. But we made do with what he had. There were seven of us in total. Ty was the leader and the oldest, he’d been on the streets for a while so he knew his way around and how to get what we needed to survive. Jordan, the tike who had poked me awake when I was first found, was the youngest at seven. Karen, Jenny, Mike, Coral, and I made up the rest of our rag-tag group.

When it came down to it, we were homeless. We plotted down wherever we could and it wasn’t often pleasant. We did what we could to get by and it wasn’t always legal. We stole when we had to, but only when we had to. We weren’t thieves, we didn’t steal just to do it, only what we needed. I want to say that I felt bad, but I didn’t. Most people who saw us already had a preconception of how we were. We couldn’t walk down a street without people moving away from us as if we were lepers. I wish I could say that I learned to appreciate the kindness of strangers but, I didn’t. I learned the opposite, how horrible humans really were.

We weren’t stupid about it though. We didn’t go alone and we didn’t take anything we didn’t plan to. It was cliché but, to Ty, if we were going to do something wrong, we were going to do it right. I was the new kid so I did a lot of watching when I first started off. I picked up on how to distract and misdirect, get people to pay attention to what you wanted them to. It was the only life I knew so I didn’t think twice about it most of the time. That wasn’t the case for everyone else though, I could see clearly see that. I often noticed Ty giving far-off glances thinking about something else and I could tell he wanted something more. But then again, what kid his age wouldn’t have?

The first three years that I remember were with Ty and the group. I grew accustomed to the life and, after a while, I stopped worrying about who I was from before. I even stopped worrying about my memories coming back—they plateaued after a while. They were my family and, even now, I still remember them fondly. With time though, things change. Bonds can grow or weaken and though we tried to maintain them, some things just weren’t meant to be. To be fair though, if there ever was something akin to destiny, mine wasn’t one I could have seen coming.