The Chosen People

Let's pretend you really needed to hide. Not just for like, a weekend. For the rest of your life. You and the people around you that you love need to disappear. Where to go? An island would be perfect, defensible, but there are not a lot of islands lying around anymore unoccupied. Any person that sees you is a person who can gossip, or be bought off, or betray your location and existence, either wittingly or unwittingly. No, what's required is a lonely place with no one for miles and miles, far away from the beaten track.

And then, once you find this ideal spot, how to stay hidden? You will have to provide food for yourselves, clothing. Animals will need to be purchased, plants will need to be grown. Shelter will have to be built. These are all things a satellite can see from space. Any interested party could comb through the images, looking through every frame for the tiniest change in landscape. You will be subject to disease without medical help. Children will need to be raised without knowledge of the outside world, so they don't someday run away and have to answer questions about where they come from. What will you do if someone changes their mind, wants to go back, and risk the entire group's safety?

As you are sitting here thinking about these questions, these eventualities, the time is ticking away. The enemy is coming for you. Your people are starting to panic, and the group is splintering, arguing. The summer is coming quickly to a close, and soon everyone will be dead if you don't decide what to do and where to go. There is no consensus in fear

How much easier then, to just flick your hand and the group, the community, your family, mother and child all disappear into the wall? Stylized, cartooned, frozen in paint and plaster forever. Safe.

Hidden away, lost from all enemies, for centuries, until the walls themselves come crumbling down. How much easier is that? A painting has no panic, no fear. A painting has no blood to draw or bone to crush. They will never find you. They will never win.

And no one can say no.