"oh, a ghost," the woman at the door pointed out when she got to her. "how scary." she smiled knowingly and dropped a block of chocolate in june's huge, hanging pillow case. june looked down at it through two uneven eye-holes punctured through the white sheet that covered her face and went all the way down over her feet, causing her to trip sometimes.

"you don't really think i'm scary," she said to the woman.

the woman smiled again and lied to her. "oh, sure i do.."

then june took the two big steps back down from the woman's porch. the other kids had already taken off to the next house, across the street. "hey!" june called to them at first, but she had to trek slowly and carefully in her sheet. she walked across the wet grass this time, ignoring the path, but she got lost in the tall, winding garden in the woman's yard.. carved sculptures and bushes like a fence. a few thorny flowers still survived in the cold.. june could hear the sound of a freight train beyond the yard, and she followed to the very edge. then she pulled through the hedges and came out in a faraway light overlooking a vast, empty stretch of concrete. it looked bigger than anything she'd ever seen. slowly and carefully she started out across its expanse, headed for structures she saw far across from her. it felt to her like hours before she was walking along them through the darker area.. train cars, still and silent now.. lined up and waiting.

from inside one of the cars came noises, muffled voices - no - one voice, one side of a conversation.. and movements. the door was open a crack when she came to it; june adjusted her eye-holes and peeked through the train car door. a startled robot jumped back against the wall, covering its face with its arms. beside it a huge pink bird with ears like a cat smiled back at her.

"it worked!" she cried, fluffing her white sheet. "i'm scary!"

the robot's eyes grew twice as large, and it tried to run into the corner.

"i like your costume," she said to the robot.

the bird admired the robot too then, still smiling, then looked at june. "it's a robot," it said.

"what are you?" she asked the bird.

"i'm a robot too, just a more convincing one."

"you look like a bird, but different.."

"would you like to play with us?" it asked.

she smiled hugely through the sheet, took its hand and stepped up into the dark box. something like dirt caked the inside walls. she saw it as a decoration when she sat in an inadvertent half-curtsy on the cold steel floor. rust came off onto her sheet.

"where do you come from?" she asked, looking first at the bird, then at the other robot.

the bird spoke for both of them, saying, "i don't remember. i only remember always existing.."

"i don't remember being born," said june.

the robot had come out of its corner, looking a little more relaxed sitting between the two of them. just then the train car started moving, taking them somewhere else. the bird let out a whoop of excitement, and the robot steadied itself with its forklike arms on the traincar's floor.

"where are we going?" asked june, worried for a moment that she should get back, back to the other children and their make-believe adventures.

"somewhere new," the bird told her, and it did sound appealing.

she snuggled inside the bedsheet, quickly falling asleep to the rhythm of the train's clicking.

she woke up and it was still dark.

"i can't believe it's still nighttime," she said. "i'm not tired anymore.."

the other two were already up, and the train was still moving.

"it's not nighttime - look," the bird said, and it pointed a strange paw to the edges of the train car, where light was seeping through just almost an inch into the dark. she could see the outlines of things inside the car too now.

it was so strange to wake up and not know where, or when it was. june rubbed her eye-holes, tracing the items in the car, trying to figure them out. the two robots looked like monsters from where she sat, and she started to back away a little, huddling further into her sheet.

then the train stopped, and the robot pulled open the train car's door with a creak. new light flooded into the car, and bright trees and hillsides were visible right in front of them.

"let's play," said the bird with a smile.

and they did, all afternoon, running over the hills, chasing each other and hiding and seeking behind the thin trees. the ends of june's long sheet blew up into the air behind her, and she laughed, loving the feel of it. then once she tripped over it, landing painfully on a grassless patch of earth.

she began crying, but the two robots didn't seem to be paying much attention, still laughing and making faces at each other between some brightly colored flowers forming a circle. june got herself up from the ground and dried her eyes through the sheet, joining the other two.

"will you need to eat?" asked the bird.

"i have my candy," she said, holding open the pillowcase. then suddenly she was hungry, once she'd been given the impetus to think about it. she chose one of the wrapped chocolates from the pillowcase, ripped it open, and pulled it all the way down under the sheet, where her feet were, bringing it up to her mouth cautiously.

"it's hard to eat it this way," she said.

then the robot approached her and motioned for her to close her eyes. it took a scissors-like tool from its hand and carefully cut a frowning mouth in the sheet where hers was. she opened her eyes again.

the bird tilted its pink head at her. "oh, now she looks sad," it said to the robot. "you should have cut a smiling face."

the robot looked away, ashamed, and tried to hide behind a crayon-thin tree.

"well, hey, it's kind of cute," the bird told it, and it seemed to lighten a bit. "and she can eat now. that's what's important. very good!" then the robot smiled - it was the first time june had seen it do so - metallic teeth forming an inverted triangle.

then back on the tracks, heading down a slow slope. even though they were headed down, it felt like a rollercoaster going up.. that excitement of knowing you'd soon be at the top, which was the whole reason for going on them.

she slept a little in the afternoon, inside the night-dark train car. she could hear the two robots talking quietly for her sake, and she rolled over out of the corner, sitting up and blinking, rubbing her eyes with filthy fingers.

"i'm hungry," she said.

the train had stopped, she noticed too, so she pulled at the car door with all her might, but she had to end up asking the robot-robot to do it for her. it felt very hot out.

as the door was opened for her she couldn't believe what she saw - all the trees and grass had vanished, and replacing them was a flat expanse of dirt or sand, spotted only here and there with tiny, unfriendly-looking plants. the day was more than half-over, but the sun seemed to shine from directly overhead. she slipped out of the car and down onto rocky soil.

"what is this place?" she asked.

"we're in the desert," the bird told her with hint of celebration in its voice.

the robot exited the car in slow increments, taking in the scene. june started back toward the car then. "oh, my candy," she said, remembering.

she climbed with great effort back up inside, and then stayed there for a while. the robots played outside, avoiding the cacti, but soon they missed her and the bird went back up to the car. "june, there's a big rock.. we found.. it's blue-" the bird stopped.

there sat the sad little ghost, tears soaking through her dingy sheet. "it's melted," she said, holding up a mushy glob of still-wrapped chocolates in her bare hand.

the bird inched over to where she sat. "so?" it said, opening one and emptying the oozing contents into its feathery paw. it fed her a bit through her still-frowning mouth-hole. then she smiled through the frown, giggling at the mushy stuff that still somehow tasted so good.

june found the desert very boring after the first day or so. it was too hot, and tired her. she didn't feel like playing in it. most of it was flat and solid, and they rolled on without much in between.

one day she opened the pillow case, turned it over and nothing came out. she hadn't noticed it getting lighter, had not wondered how much was left.

"the candy's gone," she told the bird.

"i suppose that means you won't be able to eat anymore.."

"but i'm hungry," she said.

the bird tried to look sympathetic.

"i miss farley," june told it then, looking back in the direction she thought they'd originally come from.

"who do you miss, dear?"

"farley is my dog."

"i have never seen a dog," the bird said.

"i'm sick of this thing," she said, abruptly pulling the sheet off, revealing legs, a stomach, arms, a neck, and then a head.. her hair was blond and riddled with snarls. and she was wearing normal clothes, no longer a ghost but a real girl, devoid of sweets.

she looked so much sadder than the mask had been, her eyes welling with dirty tears that reflected the stretch of desert. "i don't want to be here anymore," she said to the bird as if it were a request.

but the desert was long, did not end.

they travelled through it sluggishly - the car had never seemed so slow. it felt like walking up a huge set of stairs. june lay in the corner, holding her stomach, almost unmoving. the bird knelt over her, watching.. doing all it could, which wasn't much. and then after a long travel, the car finally stopped again.

june said in a tiny voice, "i don't want to be in here. take me outside."

the robot picked her up in its hard arms, coiling them in three parts around her and walking far off with the bird close behind. they stopped in a clear spot on the ground, free of cacti or too many rocks, and lay her down in the hot sun. the bird knelt beside her.

"you are going to die," it said, placing a gentle paw on her blond head, and its feathers brushed her hot forehead.

her face took a moment to change, to realize this was for real. she shook her head in defiance.

"one cannot play forever," it said, shaking its head as well, but in defiance of something else.

"i don't want to stop playing.." she whimpered, regaining just enough strength to protest the inevitable.

the bird and the robot looked at one another like an old couple. then the robot made a telling motion in the bird's direction and the bird said, "to exist free from parental responsibility is impossible for a whole lifetime. you would have had to get a job, and have a boss, to compromise. freedom is sparse, and used poorly. but you have used your freedom well. at no other time would you have been able to live a life consisting wholly of play. wasn't it better this way?"

but now she was too weak to answer or even move, and she just gazed up through tears, now fully trusting of the figment before her.

they buried her in desert sand, underneath a great, spindly cactus twisting and knotting like her hair had. the robot just stared solemnly at the spot, and the bird raised its head to the sun, letting out an unearthly wail at it, at the whole, physical sky..so real. it was nightfall before the two had carried on, marching east over sand dunes till it was so dark they couldn't see each other or anything anymore.