Gabby stormed out of the building and clawed through her purse. The party thumped above her, rhythmic bass tones pounding. Wine soaked her blouse, every rivulet a fresh reminder of the humiliation she had just suffered.
She yanked out her cell phone to summon a taxi, her fingers shaking over the screen. Then she went to the corner to wait.
She stood beneath the traffic light. Redness bathed the air. She hugged herself, looked across the street, and there saw a woman standing in the shadows of a shuttered storefront. Her clothes were ragged and her hair was unkempt. She was motionless, save for the wringing of her hands. Gabby frowned. The woman pointed at herself, and then pointed at her. Gabby jumped as footsteps and voices emerged behind her, and then sighed with relief at the sight of a group of young men and women on their way somewhere.
But when she looked again, the woman was twisting her hands beneath her eyes in the universal gesture of crying. Gabby tensed. The cab arrived, and she dove into it, never more relieved to hear a driver call her name.
The woman hugged herself and twisted from side to side, running her hands over her arms. Gabby watched her until the car rounded a corner.
Relief enveloped her, her humiliation at the party no longer such a big deal.
But when they slowed to a stop at the next traffic light, the same woman stood on a different corner, running her hand over her heart and pointing at Gabby.
The woman was on every corner, her face veiled, her clothing and hair disheveled.
Gabby’s thoughts became jumbled, beating against themselves, and suddenly her head ached. She hunched forward, shaking, shivering, lost in a torrent of strange images. Rivers of beautiful memories assaulted her, flashes of sensation that were not hers. Along with these pleasurable visions came waves of disappointment, fear, and pain. And suddenly she felt herself disappearing into a deep well, where the screams of countless others joined her own. Connecting them all was a greedy and weary awareness that bore into her soul and sucked all of her good memories until all that remained was…
The cab came to a stop before the apartment.
“Okay, miss, we’re…”
Then the driver cried out and jumped out of the car.
The woman sat up and was no longer Gabby. She was disheveled and dirty and wringing her hands together.
She got out of the cab, and the driver watched horror-struck as she whimpered and shuffled into the shadows.
Standing upon some corner you may find her there, lost in endless heartbreak and searching for another whose joy may offer respite from her pain. But her relief will never last, for what she takes she will not return, and those lost within her dark womb forget joy save for what they steal from others. On and on, this parasite roams through darkness and time, consuming. And she is no one.