I'm 6 months pregnant, no job, living with my boyfriend and lost.

Unsigned

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My Nameless Interlocutor Embarazada

Congratulations on your coming nativity! I share the joy of your entire family, pod or pack, and thus all the more appreciate the grave circumstances that being lost at this time of waning energies might mean.

There are two immediate steps for the lost: First, do not panic and do not move! Many who have misplaced themsevles only make more difficult the work of would-be rescuers by wandering about aimlessly. Sit down and stay put. Secondly, try to arrive at a general notion of your location. I trust that you recall the astronavigation you were taught in the elementary schools, and so will dispense with —

"Uhhm . . . Mr. Squid?"

I had been gazing out the windowside of my tank as I dictated to my dictator, peering idyly into the sub-vernal sun-glitter upon Detroit's river. Turning back to face the room, I saw that Jarwaun sat idle at the computer, looking at the screen of Rob's old computer. "JARWAUN, I HEAR NOT THE TYPING!"

"It's just — " Jarwaun turned to look to me, and there was a graveness to his dark umber features, "I don't think this female's problem is that she lost in the woods."

I TSKed and shook my headsac forlornly at Jarwaun's presumption. "PERHAPS, SOME DAY IN THE DISTANT AND UNKNOWABLE FUTURE, YOU MIGHT DESIRE TO YOURSELF DISPENSE OF THE ADVICE, JARWAUN. IT IS A NOBLE PROFESSION, I CAN FULL WELL UNDERSTAND YOUR DESIRE TO PURSUE IT. IT IS THUS INCUMBENT THAT YOU LEARN NOW THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT MAKING THE ASSUMPTIONS WHEN FIRST APPROACHING A PETITIONER'S QUERY, FOR TO ASSUME IS TO MAKE AN ASS OUT OF YOU AND ME, IS IT NOT?"

Jarwaun blinked twice.

"AND I NOTE THAT YOU HAVE ASSUMED MUCH, INCLUDING THAT THIS IS A WOMAN WHO DOES ASK, AND THAT HER BEING 'LOST' IS SOMEHOW NOT 'LOST'."

Jarwaun now looked confused in addition to looking concerend. "She say she pregnant, Mr. Squid," Jarwaun said carefully.

"AND SUCH A DELICATE STATE IS SOLELY THE PURVIEW OF FEMALE PRIMATES?" I did quip sarcastically.

Jarwaun did stare further, and Molly called from across the room, looking not up from her own computations, "Yes, it is."

"BUT, WHAT OF THE JUNIOR STARRING THE INEMITABLE ARNOLD BLACK-ONE-MORE-OF-NIGER?"

Molly had risen to join us. "Christ," she sighed, "We've been through this before; what did I say about movies? Movies and human sexuality?"

"THAT YOU WOULD GLADLY RUTT WITH JOHNNY O'-THE-DEEP, DESPITE HIS DEARTH OF PHYSICAL STATURE?"

Molly redened and scowled. "Well yeah, obviously. So would you. But—"

"I RECALL IT RICHLY, AS IT WAS DURING THE THIRD OF OUR MOVIE NIGHTS, WHEN YOU AND DEVO DRANK OF THE MARGARITTA BUCKET AND WE WATCHED BOTH THE SUPERIOR AND INFERIOR DOCUMENATIRES ON CARIBBEAN PIRACY."

"Y'all watch movies and no one told me?" Jarwaun looked first surprised, and then hurt.

"That movie," Molly intoned carefully, "Was not a documentary. Movies are not a good reserouce in studying human sexual development."

"That true," Jarwaun agreed solemnly.

Moly glanced at the computer terminal afore Jarwaun, "Christ. I agree with the kid; I think this girl's in trouble."

I nodded sagely, "AS TROUBLED AS IS WELL DOCUMENTED AMONG THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRLS, NO DOUBT."

"I know," Jarwaun said to Molly, ignoring my own observations. "The way she say she 'lost'; my moms work in a womens' shelter—"

Molly looked at Jarwaun, "I thought your mother—it's just . . ."

Jarwaun still looked upon the screen, "Me and Trael live with our pops. Our momma ain't there, 'cause of the courts. But that's what she say, that most women only come once they can't find no place else, but once they there, they all 'Damn, why'd I put up with shit instead of comin' here?' This lady need to get someplace else than she is."

Molly sighed, "Too bad we don't know where she is to help her get away from it."

"I KNOW WHERE SHE IS," I did intone with as much gravity as I could muster—which, as I have control over the microphonics of my tank, is really quite a bit.

Molly did blow a puff of frustrated air up past her forehead, causing her curtain of forelocks to rear up and palpitate fiercly, like the grip-tearing tentacles of a female angered. She turned to me, bringing to bear her half-lidded and anger-fired eyes, "You know this is serious, right? That this isn't time for dick jokes?" She pointed at me with a ragged nail. "You're as bad as Rob."

"I ALLOW THAT THERE MAY BE SERIOUSNESS TO THE REQUEST, AND FURTHER NOTE THAT THE DISCOVERY OF THE INTERLOCUTOR-ETTE'S LOCALE IS ELEMENTARY. WITHIN THE HEADER OF HER MESSAGE IS THE INTERNET PROTOCOL ADDRESS OF THE COMPUTER FROM WHICH IT WAS SENT, WHICH CAN BE GEOLOCATED TO THE PLACE OF THAT COMPUTER'S CONNECTION TO THE INTERNETS' TUBES. THERE ARE MANY TOOLS FOR THIS?."

Jarwaun tapped tentatively, did wiggle of the mouse and scan with his eyes.

"OK yeah, I got it, the numbers. How do I look it up to where she at?"

"I OFT REQUEST ROB DO SUCH RESEARCH, AND DOUBT NOT THAT IT IS AMONG HIS MOST VALUED RESOURCES IN THE INTERNETS BROWSER."

Jarwaun clicked and mouse-jiggled further, then went the pop-eyed and looked away from the screen. Molly snorted gleefully, then scootered over in her own wheeled chair, sitting aside my typist.

"Well, let's see," she read from the screen, "We've got TITTIES, MEGA-TITTIES, HOTASS TITTIES—any of these sound right?" Jarwaun giggled gleefully.

"ORNITHOLOGICAL RESOURCES?"

"TIGHT ASSES, STRETCH, CAM, CHICKS LIKE MOLL —" The words died on her lips.

"This one?" Jarwaun pointed. "Say LORD A'S SHIT."

"Yeah," Molly said coldly, taking the keyboard from Jarwaun and typing.

"That tight, yo."

"IT IS INDEED."

"Say here she wrote from Curwensville, Pennsylvania. Where that at?"

"Ugh," Molly said, scanning the screen, "Curwensville looks like a worse rust-belt burn out than Detroit, and a helluva lot smaller." Molly tapped more on the keyboard. "Check out the Google Map of this place. There's, like, nothing there."

Jarwaun took the keyboard back. "We gotta find this lady some, like, options, see?" He clicked and typed, his hands racing far faster than I had ever seen afore while taking dictatorship. And, as in any good engine, as more energy was poured into Jarwaun's researches, his results were likewise increased, despite the dearth of resources in Curwensville proper, which finds itself in the County of Clearfield.

Jarwaun was overwhelmingly concered with what "Lost" might here mean, and concluded there are three primary concerns: the Drugs, the Goals and the Situation.

Dear Anonymous and Troubled Petitioner, in many respects, and despite your current role as the vestibule and hatching chamber for a potential being of terrible might, the abuse of substances prove the least problematic problem, as your own community fosters a clinic for the direct address of these concerns within its borders.

In the case that you are displeased with your life's role, which is seeming both ill-defined and to bear ill-futures, Jarwaun has suggested to visit Westmoreland County Community College, two hours to your South and East, in the provincial village of Youngwood. There you can discover modes of preparation in a variety of Fields of Inquiry and Careers of Merit, which then do naturally lend to a Sense of Worth and an Overall Understaning of One's Place—which is to say, of all of Jarwaun's hypotheses, it is this that I most clearly understand to be a path away from Lost and toward Found.

Finally, both Jarwaun and Molly agreed that it might well be your Situation that is most troublesome. Should you require shelter other than that in which you find yourself lost, they suggested that while the Marian House may be far from ideal to you, philosophically, its proximity is advantageous, lying fewer than fifteen minutes to your Northeast. In the worst of all events, you can arrive there on foot in less than an hour, even over broken terrain.

I argued that, as parenthood was imminent, planning seemed a bit after-the-fact at this juncture. Jarwaun rejoined that it "wasn't that kinda planning." I asked of what sort the planning might be, but he knew not. Molly ventured that it was planning for all stages of the pregnancy-event, and also for those who wished to avoid the state of pregnancy and to those who wish to rid themselves of the state of pregnancy without the corresponding birthing or hatching. Skeptical of the truthfulness of her claims—how is such a thing possible?—I will nonetheless provide this datum; Jarwaun was insistent, and I am as fond of his youthful persistance as I am vexed by his persistant dearth of perspicacity. Planned Parenthood of the Susquehanna Valley keeps offices in the village of State College, but one hour from your locale.

Also, I do not intend to trigger any undue alarm, but my research upon these Internets indicates that there are four registered sex offenders in your fair burgh—meaning that for every 635 non-offesnively-sexed citizens, you have a single citizen of the sex most treacherous. If any of these four men are the boyfriend with whom you cohabitate, please proceed with extreme caution.

You currently subsist in a grim territory, both geographically and philosophically. Although neither of my assistants approve this message, I speak for myself—and myself alone—when I say this: There is the Potential that you are, and the Potential which you find planted within yourself. I do believe, in all sincereity, that there is no reason that you should feel the neccessity to forsake the former for the Idea of the Potential Future Life of the latter. You are you, and your first and foremost responsibility is to be a good husband to your own self, to nurture you, to find you when you have wandered a field, and to bring yourself to the happy pasture in which you belong.

When we were finished with this missive to you, I fear it had grown late, cold and dark in the decaying City outside our warm place high in the sky.

"Damn, Mr. Squid, it got late!" Jarwaun exclaimed as he rose, gathering his bag of books. "I gotta have a rough draft for my report about Hernan Cortez tomorrow!"

"YOU SHALL REPORT OF HERNAN CORTEZ' CONQUEST OF THE GALILEAN MOONS?"

"Naw," Jarwaun said, waving his hand, "Cortez who went to Mexico."

"HE ALSO WENT TO OLD MEXICO? VERY WELL. STAY, PLEASE, AND WE SHALL RESEARCH IT TOGETHER. I KNOW MUCH OF HIS SIDEREAL EXPLOITS, WHICH I AM GLAD TO DICTATE TO YOUR PERSON. AND THAT WHICH I DO NOT KNOW WE SHALL FIND TOGETHER ON MR. WIKI'S PEDIA, WHICH DESPITE THE NAME SEEKS NOT TO LOVE NAMBLASTICALLY, BUT ONLY TO ENGAGE IN A LOVE OF A KNOWLEDGE BOTH SELECT AND COMPLETE."

And so Jarwaun stayed, later yet still into the night, and we spoke at great length of the many who have themselves been lost and found again, and their strange empactful footfalls.

You are not in the least lost, my nameless Pennsylvanian, but merely misplaced. There are many better locales for you—perhaps even amongst the half-bred Hispano-moonmen of Europa. Go forth, like Quetza-Cortez, to find that place where you, too, are greeted as a God. I have done so, and regret little or naught.

I Remain with Jarwuan and Molly, High Atop the Renaissance Center of Detroit,
Your Giant Squid