MISSING:

Have you seen this kid?

(There's no flick, so bear with me...)

Anyway, he was last spotted in a fourth grade classroom, kickin’ it with his homies. Geeked with enthusiasm, he spoke of his intended lot in life with wide-eyed imagination. And because them cancerous lil’ microbes of doubt that grown folks are so fond of spreadin’ had yet to be planted in his mind, his list of career choices was damn near limitless.

Runnin’ the gamut from artist to ballplayer to chemist to detective, lil’ dude’s hat rack was filled with more lids than there are bricks in a prison wall. And he still had room to spare. Not logical, you say, but shorty knew back then what 85% of alleged adults have obviously forgotten: The World is Yours…

Forget Scarface, grasshopper; good ol’ Tony only skimmed the surface. This is bigger than any kingpin fantasy, bigger than any platinum-VISAs or weekends-in-St.-Barts type wishes. Naaah, lil’ man was on to something with all that daydreamin’. And what made it all so dope was that he wasn’t alone. Not by far.

Man, to hear all them lil’ kids goin’ on about bein’ the first Latino President, or bein’ the first woman on Mars, fuck the moon. Oh, and don’t let ’em get to tellin’ you their predictions—for themselves, their families, friends, the world, you name it—for the year 2000.

Music, y’all. Gospel out the mouths of babes.

“Wow! 2000! I’ll be [thirty-something] years-old and I’ll be married to [somebody in the class, or better yet, somebody famous!] and I’ll have two kids—a boy and a girl—and I’ll have my own house and I’ma buy a house for my mother and one for my big sister and by then cars are gonna fly so we all gonna have flyin’ cars and I’ma be a [doctor, lawyer, baker, fireman, astronaut, basketball star, singer, actress, baseball player, hairdresser, construction worker, race-car driver…] …”

But something went wrong. Somewhere along the way, their imagined nations started gettin’ smaller and smaller. By the time they hit high school, a good number of ’em couldn’t see themselves outside The Bronx anymore. And only two or three of ’em who stuck through to the 12th grade could see the world beyond the block.

Lil’ shorty with the bucktoothed smile wasn’t one of ’em.

See, by then he ain’t have no time to be bullshittin’ with silly-ass dreams and whatnot. Not him. He was too busy bein’ an adult. And like he had learned from the more “mature” people around him, bein’ grown is as real as shit gets. Ain’t no grown-ups got time for dreamin’.

Right?

Besides, he knew a lot of people over 21, and not one of ’em was a doctor or a lawyer, let alone a fuckin’ astronaut.

Coupla years into the 20s, and lil’ man finally disappeared.

Ghost.

Never to be seen again.

But there is hope.

Some say he was seen hangin’ around with the cats who brought Station Zero to MTV some years ago. Others say he’s been puttin’ pen to paper, crafting stories based on his own experience, as well as on those around him. Others have placed him hard at work, daydreaming.

If you do happen to see him, tell him that it’s aiight to come back now. Tell him we were dead wrong, that ain’t nothin’ wrong with dreams—especially the ones that all those grown-ups said are the most out of reach.

And remember: He’s not alone. Like you read above, lil’ shorty’s just one out of millions.

Dig around a little bit. There's a lot of lil' kids gone missing. Here's how you can help.

Do something you haven’t done in eons, like catch a flick by yourself or take a walk through the ‘hood and just watch people.

Jump on a train or bus and see your hometown—for the first time.

Cop an ice cream cone and go stretch out on a park bench for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Start a journal and just black out with it. Write down anything you want.

Ask the kind of “why not?” questions you haven’t asked since you were eight or nine.

Daydream.

With a little bit of effort, you’ll fuck around and run into some lil’ kid you haven’t seen in a while.


**originally published (minus slices and dices dictated by time and space) a long-ass time ago, at a plantation, far, far away…**