[Author’s note: This was not, in fact, the first post on the “…she’s a flight risk” weblog, but it is certainly the most recognisable. If you are here, you probably know why, still, you might like to poke over to the About page regardless. There’s some history there, and it is a good bet you haven’t heard all of it.]
Today these words are still cited as the defining tagline of the blog. Now that the once indispensable Technorati is gone and Google’s “site:” search is degraded to the point of being useless, and “link:” is totally dead, it’s easier to find references to “…she’s a flight risk” by searching for “On March 2, 2003 at 4:12 pm, I disappeared.” than anything else.
My name is isabella v.
I’m twentysomething and I am an international fugitive.
My name is isabella v. But it isn’t.
I’ve been careful up to now. Careful to leave few clues or to obscure them if I did leave them, to mix them with something else and make them unreadable. The first two weeks, the hardest, are over. I feel mostly safe. As safe as I can feel. There is still, of course, a constant “over the shoulder” paranoia to all this. The fear that I’m giving something away when I talk to a realtor. A clerk. An airline ticket agent.
I’ve been careful up to now to avoid contacting anyone who knew me before. I know that is the kiss of death but the temptation is always lingering.The temptation to reach out and touch the old world. There is danger there. I can feel it. Real and palpable in the air of that world. But I am still tempted.
It’s a release for the much more dangerous temptation to pick up the phone and call someone I once knew. That other girl once knew. She. Her. Not me anymore. To meet someone. To write a letter. A post card. Something clever and coy. To leave physical evidence. Here I can cover my tracks better. Or I think I can.
And perhaps publicity will help. If my story is public, it’s harder to hurt me. Isn’t it? Harder to make me disappear? People will notice. Questions will be asked. That’s the last thing they want. Questions.
And so I begin to tell my tale. Writing a little more every time the urge to reach out to the old world touches me. Every time I am tempted. Every time I feel reckless.
And if I must interest you, then I suppose I have to tell you about me and about how I came to take flight. To run. I suppose I have to make you care. I don’t know that I can, but I can tell you who I am- that is who I was. I can tell you what happened to me. I can tell you who I am running from. What I am running from. I can give you my story.
I’ll start to type it up. Post it here in segments, little wisps of me thrown out into the ether day by day, whenever I can.
It’s a long story and it begins long ago, far before I heard him whisper the words “…I am worried that she’s a flight risk.”
You, humble reader, if you do in fact exist. If you even care. You are my safety net. In return I suppose I have to keep you entertained. Keep you reading. That’s the bargain. Keep your watchful eye on me- so that you might notice if I vanish suddenly. So that you might ask the questions that would save me. I will, in turn, try to keep you reading.
And if I must interest you, then I suppose I have to tell you about me and about how I came to take flight. To run. I suppose I have to make you care. I don’t know that I can, but I can tell you who I am- that is who I was. I can tell you what happened to me. I can tell you who I am running from. What I am running from. I can give you my story.
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