She stepped off the bus, shouldering her travel bag and feeling for the lump of plastic over her heart. Good. The passport was still there. It had almost been stolen weeks earlier. The money she could do without, the leather purse and all the neatly filed credit cards within would receive no funeral service. At this time in her life, the theft of her identity was far more of a concern. She had no earthly idea why she felt that losing a cheap plastic binder, a mangled photo and oil-slick empty papers would erase her. In whatever would have become of the hypothetically stolen passport, she imagined, would so befall her as well. Into the ocean? She’d be swept overboard, her legs still tangled in her dive suit with her weight-belt still wrapped around her forearm. If it were to be burned and the flames stubbed out under the boots of an impatient villain, her mangled body would be strewn across the melted plastic shell of a horrific car accident.
 
Those sorts of horrors, the kind that whisper each time her heart is on the down beat – have a way of sweeping in unfounded paranoia and childish superstitions that quite frankly, ignore most and if not all rules of gravity, relativity, and sanity. 
 
How did it come down to this? How do any passport cousins – the state identification, drivers license, motorcycle license, military identification .. manage to wield the exact same power? That when lost or stolen, rob us of the ability to move. 
 
They open doors, they close doors. They get you privileges, they deny you services. The card you own summarizes your worth. It tells you where you can go and when you have to go back.
 
She must’ve figured it out, somewhere, when she was walking from the bus stop to the office – there isn’t a damn card for your soul.
 
And ain’t that a fucking shame?