Punky Flamingo Girl-Love woke the next morning and stared into the mirror until she didn’t know who she was anymore. Then she went to her Papa.

“I have to leave,” she said. Her eyes pleaded with him.

“Girl,” he said simply, and she knew he was saying yes. She hugged him, long and strong, and then packed her bags. She strapped her keyboard to her back and hung her shiny black shell from her pale neck.

“Don’t tell Night why,” she said.

“When will you be back?” her Papa asked.

“When I’ve found what I need,” Girl said.

She gave her Papa one last hug, and hopped on a bus to who-knows-where.

Girl scrunched herself into a ball on the sticky vinyl seat and stared out the window, her forehead pressed up against the glass. She ran her finger along the edge of her dark little shell.

“Night,” she whispered. “Night, night it’s so dark and I’m lost in the nothing.”

Girl needed to figure out who she was.

She snapped pictures of cold, empty people stuck to bus seats. Images of darkness and loneliness surrounded her.

The bus wheezed to a stop and Punky Girl looked out the window into a carnival whirl of people and colors and music. She swept off of the bus and threw herself into the pulsing crowd. It led her to a wild club. She danced, throwing her darkness onto the ground and letting the neon lights dazzle her eyes.

Someone grabbed her and pressed his face into her head. Girl grinned, crazy, and danced against the stranger, tossing herself at him. She wasn’t anyone. She was nothing. The strange man twisted away, lost in the crowd again. Girl whirled and balanced like a flamingo, pink strobe lights illuminating her hair and pale, sweat-streaked face (or were those wet things tears?)

She stumbled out onto the sidewalk, broken and defeated and alone.

“Who is this Girl?” she screamed at the sky. The stars stared down at her blankly. Lost Little Flamingo Girl wailed and pounded her fists into the pavement, coloring it red. As soft rain mixed with her blood and tears, she slowly screamed herself weary.

A plastic angel took her hand and helped her to her feet.

“Hey, you, girl,” she said. “Come with me now, why don’t you?”

Too tired to protest, Girl followed, keeping her eyes on the spun-sugar wings and chocolate legs beneath neon leggings.

They reached a purple door, and inside it was the softest bed that Girl had ever felt. She sank deep into the lovely coziness and fell asleep right away.

She awoke to coffee smells and a brown face peering at her.

“Good. You’re up; I was beginning to think you might have died, there.”

The woman wandered off to a little kitchen alcove. She was still dressed in her brightcrazyneon wings and glowed, almost.

And Girl, (for finallyonce) felt safe and content.

“Who are you, Angel-Woman?” she asked.

“I’m Gabriela. Now get yourself cleaned up and eat something, skinny thing.”

Girl felt real again. She showered up in the bathroom, wincing as she cleaned away the blood and dirt. Her skin felt rough against the velvety fluorescent towels that she used to dry her injured body. This softened, clean Girl wrapped herself in the yellow robe hanging on the door and shuffled to the kitchen. Gabriela had pancakes waiting, and Girl stuffed them down, marveling at the way they warmed her stomach and her heart. Gabriela Angel-Woman took her hand.

“Who are you? Where are you going?”

Girl thought for a moment and realized that she didn’t really know the answer to either question.

“I’m called Punky Flamingo Girl-Love, but I don’t know who I am. I’m going to wherever I can find myself.”

Gabriela patted her hand once and smiled.

“Then until you find what you are looking for, you can stay with me.”

And Girl was so filled up with warm sleepy pancake heaven and happy fizzy excitement love bubbles that she leaked a few tears onto her yellow robe. Gabriela pretended that she didn’t see.

When it was dark and quiet and Girl was lying in the warm bed, she cried to clean herself. She cried out all of her love (or was it love?) for Night and she cried for her poor lonely Papa and for her poor lonely heart.

Gabriela sat against the wall and listened to Girl’s muffled sobs and cried slowly and softly for Girl. She knew how being lost felt.