April 30, 2026

He did not resist when they approached him.

There was no reason to.

He had been sitting on a bench near the edge of town, watching the land the way he always had. Not as it was, but as it had been.

There had been more water once.

That was the first thing he noticed.

The second was the absence of cold.

It had been colder then. Not always, but long enough to matter.

A vehicle pulled up.

Two agents stepped out.

They spoke to him in a tone that suggested this was routine.

“Sir, we need to ask you a few questions.”

He looked at them.

“That has been happening more often.”

They did not respond to that.

“Do you have identification?”

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

He considered the question.

“Here.”

The agents exchanged a glance.

“Where exactly is ‘here’?”

He gestured, not at the road or the buildings, but at the land beyond them.

“This place.”

They did not write that down.

“Sir, we’re going to need something more specific.”

“There was no need for that before.”

“Before what?”

He looked at them, as if deciding how much of the answer they could use.

“Before you started asking.”

They paused.

One of them made a note anyway.

They asked him to stand.

He did.

He walked with them without hesitation.

There was no reason not to.

Inside, the questions continued.

Name.

He gave one.

It was accepted, though not verified.

Date of birth.

He paused.

“That is not something I kept.”

“Approximate, then.”

He considered that longer.

“It was after the long cold.”

“Year.”

“There were no years.”

The agent writing stopped for a moment, then continued anyway.

“Country of origin.”

He looked at the wall, as if expecting something to be there that was not.

“There were no countries.”

“Sir, everyone is from somewhere.”

“I am.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

The same answer.

The same problem.

They shifted tactics.

“Do you have any documentation of entry into the United States?”

“No.”

“When did you arrive?”

“I did not arrive.”

The agent set the pen down.

“Everyone arrives.”

“Not all at once.”

That did not help.

Another agent stepped in.

“ICE is involved now.”

He looked at him.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s the authority that determines whether you belong here.”

He thought about that.

Then:

“The only ice I remember moved across the land.”

No one spoke.

One of them wrote it down anyway.

“Sir, this is serious.”

“So was that.”

He said it without emphasis.

Just a statement.

They tried again.

“You understand that if you can’t establish where you’re from, we can’t determine your status.”

He nodded.

“That seems to be the difficulty.”

“Then help us.”

He looked at them.

“I am.”

That answer stayed in the room longer than the others.

They changed direction again.

“Have you lived anywhere else?”

He thought.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

He described places that had no names.

Rivers that had moved.

Forests that were no longer there.

Animals they recognized only as drawings in books.

“Those locations don’t exist,” one of them said.

“They did.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“It is to me.”

They stopped writing for a while.

There was nothing to attach the answers to.

No country.

No entry.

No timeline that matched anything they had.

Finally, one of them leaned back.

“Sir… how long have you been here?”

He looked at the table.

Then at his hands.

Then back at them.

“Longer than you have.”

That answer, at least, made sense.

Even if it didn’t solve anything.

There was a pause.

Not procedural.

Not official.

Just a pause.

“You’re saying you were born here.”

“Yes.”

“And never left.”

“Yes.”

“And you have no documentation.”

“No.”

“And no country.”

“There was no country.”

The agent exhaled.

“Do you understand why this is a problem?”

He considered that.

“Yes.”

“Then what do you expect us to do?”

He looked at them, not unkindly.

“That is new.”

They sat with that.

There were forms for many things.

This was not one of them.

Eventually, a decision was made.

Not recorded in any meaningful way.

He was released.

No status assigned.

No resolution reached.

He walked back outside.

The air was warmer than it had been, once.

The land was drier.

But it was still the same place.

He sat down again.

Watched.

Remembered.

A vehicle passed.

Then another.

No one stopped.

No one asked.

The system had moved on.

He had not.

“You’ve only been here a little while,” he said quietly, though no one was there to hear it.

“It just feels longer to you.”

End

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