Lost Children Archive

by Valeria Luiselli

I sit on the porch, half reading my book, looking up at the three of them now and then. They look memorable from where I’m sitting; look like they should be photographed. I almost never take pictures of my own children. They hate being in pictures and always boycott the family’s photographic moments. If they are asked to pose for a portrait, they make sure their disdain is apparent, and fake a wide, cynical smile. If they are allowed to do as they please, they make porcine grimaces, stick out their tongues, contort themselves like Hollywood aliens in midseizure. They rehearse antisocial behaviors in general. Maybe it’s the same with all children. Adults, on the contrary, profess almost religious reverence toward the photographic ritual. They adopt solemn gestures, or calculate a smile; they look toward the horizon with patrician vanity, or into the lens of the camera with the solitary intensity of porn stars. Adults pose for eternity; children for the instant.