Lost Children Archive

Box VI is a set of textual transcriptions, interpretations of sounds from the father’s “Inventory of Echoes” soundscape. For example: “Insect Echoes: “Teetoo, tootoop, top, two ants talking […] Leaves Echoes: “Whooosh, whoosh, leaf falling […] Rock Echoes: (Silence)” (342-43).

“Document” is a tape the boy records for his sister the night before their parents separate. The next morning, the mother is going to leave for New York with his sister, and he is going to stay in Arizona with his father. He explains that their mother and father tried to stay together, but they simply saw things too differently, as “one was a documentarian and the other a documentarist” (348). He tells her:

When you look at all the pictures and listen to this recording, you’ll understand many things, and eventually maybe you’ll even understand everything. That’s also why I decided to be both a documentarian and a documentarist—so you could get at least two versions of everything and know things in different ways, which is always better than just one way (349).

He tells her that she might feel lost at the time of his recording, but he promises that one day, they will find each other again.