Who Is She

Photo by coco tafoya on Unsplash

The arm of my pink chair becomes the shoulder of a woman sitting beside me when I am writing, she is only out the corner of my eye, but she is there. It startled me at first. If I were crazy, or crazier, I might try to talk to her. I think she is holding a baby, I can tell by her posture, leaning forward over something precious. I can’t tell what else makes up her person—the soft shape of the pillow on the loveseat? the blurred edge of that white table just over there? Shadows cast, or light reflected, I can’t be sure of anything except her, because for the moment all of it has disappeared into her being. If I turn my head for a better look, she disappears back into the inanimate. She lingers for half a second, without lifting her head to meet my gaze. What if she never comes back? Will I stop believing she was here? And what would that mean? Would something in me shut down?  I don’t know. She remains a mystery, proof that there is much in this world that we cannot see, except sometimes out the corner of our eyes.