So There Is This Lady...

I know I said it for the title but in this instance, I've decided it bears repeating...

Alight, so, there is this lady.

It really does start there and I am almost afraid to see where it is leading. Everybody hold on to their seats...

This lady, she lives in my apartment complex. Not in the same building as I do but in the one over across the way. Occasionally, I park my truck by her apartment since it is fairly convenient to mine.

She is always there... Always!

Picture it... A forty-something woman... maybe pushing toward fifty... She is sitting in her chair. I mean Her Chair. Nobody else sits in this chair. Partially, it's because she never leaves it to give anyone the chance to sit down. Partially, it's because you know by looking at it as she stares into the void that her ass has worn into it in such a way that no other human being could possibly conform to that seat and have it fit so perfectly.

She is easy to envision.

Her legs are crossed.

Right over left above the knee.

Right foot semi covered by a worn slipper attached to her toes with super-glue.

The leg is bouncing incessantly as if it is running the generator that fills her with what passes for life.

On her knee, she cups her right arm in her left palm.

The right arm stands at attention with a perpetually half-smoked cigarette.

Her whole body is crouched over, lips an inch from the butt end, leg kicking to generate the energy for the next drag.

Her eyes are unfocused but burning with malice as she envisions the world burning at the end of her Marlboro.

Her straw-like hair falls about her shoulders.

Wilting in death.

Waiting for the rest of the body to fall down around it.

I don't know what the lady is thinking about. Not really. But she hasn't moved in months. I don't even think she has changed cigarettes. Is just sits in her hand with a thin coil of smoke rising up to the apartment above.

Would a good person say hello? Would a better person ask her how her day's been as they parked so very, very close?

Am I horrible because it's all I can do to slink away and avoid her gaze. I just... I don't want her to swallow my soul or something. You never know.