'Orphans' by Emily Utter

We are orphans – alone and wild. We are orphans – strong, clever and cunning.

The farm is a savannah – no – rainforest – no – dense wood (it depends who is leading this round of the game). It depends what kind of monsters we wish to fight. On the farm, coyotes yip late into the night, and cougars leave paw prints in the dirt, but we trade them for lions, tigers, and worse.

There is never a back-story – our parents did not die in car crashes or abandon us on roadsides – and we aren’t siblings or cousins in this world. We are comrades and urchins – there are no babies in this game because babies can’t run. There is always a lot of running from things that are trying to get us.

We fight pirates and poachers and kidnappers and build ramshackle forts and lean-tos and sometimes we sleep in the trees. The youngest members of the group mutiny and start their own band of rival misfits. We steal food from the kitchen, claim territory, and raid each other’s hideouts. The younger ones are more cautious so they stay near the house and make a fort out of towels in our play set, which is neither cunning nor resourceful and makes them an easy target.

After many years of this, after we transform into warriors, we roam the orchards, using our swords – sticks – to whack trees instead of fighting barbarians. When our stomachs grumble we lay down our weapons and retreat to the house for popcorn on the living room floor or a late afternoon swim in the pool.

Our mothers stroke wet hair and rub aloe into sunburned shoulders. They ask us where we’ve been.