I don’t exactly recall the first time I saw her, but she was pushing a shopping cart along a road without stores, or even sidewalks. Dark haired and slim, she blended into the desert surroundings, but the shopping cart stood out by being out of place. I didn’t think too much of it, this being Las Vegas and all. Stranger things happen daily – a disappearing woman and an empty cart aren’t really much of a mystery.
The second time I saw her, she was hiking the gullies along the wash without her cart. Despite the passing of a few months, I recognized her instantly. It wasn’t so much her appearance as it was her expression. Something about the eyes. A person could only look at her eyes for that barest fraction of a second before the wildness threatened to draw them in with no escape.
I certainly couldn’t; I blinked and, as the cliché goes, she was gone. While startled, I had no interest in chasing down strangers to ask them silly questions. I probably wouldn’t have recalled any of this at all, except, as she disappeared, a dark furred coyote appeared out of the same wash and loped off. No screams, no cries for help, no human footprints except my own.
I looked for her human form without any luck. But, to this day, I see the coyote with her deep and wild eyes occasionally pass me by. And strangely, the coyote nods, as if to an equal intelligence, when she sees me.
#microfiction #strangehappenings
MercyJ Writes 