watching light

She stood beside the shallow river. I could not see what she was looking at, but it was down towards her sandals. She had been standing there forty-five minutes ago. I had hiked up the mile and a half high hill and back and wondered what was going on in her head. It would not have been so odd if she had been sitting, or even crouching. She was simply standing.

She was in a salmon moose pate colored dress. There was amber light in her reddish hair and blue prisms bouncing up from the river onto her pale skin. If I were a man I would have fallen in love with her. I was obsessed with her feminine image. (Or I was obsessed with the parts of her that were so feminine.) But I was just a lady clerk and an uneager one at that. I started to believe if I watched her too long she would think I was creepy the stalker sort but I just couldn’t stop. It seemed like her silhouette was freezing the sunset and I didn’t want the frosty night to set in. So, I sat down.


In front of me was a woman that I had followed up the hill for twenty minutes.

I had noticed her as she turned in front of me in the gravel parking lot. I had continued down the road past a few ranch houses and driveways realizing on the third or forth mailbox I needed to see her again. I turned around, three-point style, in front of a Jackie O blue ranch and smiled at the Australian Shepard who walked around the house to greet me.

Back on the gravel lot on the edge of the river I pulled the parking break and looked out the window to see Her. She was still lacing up her hiking shoes. I was happy to have taken casual Friday seriously. My feet were strapped into the ever-flexible Keene walkers and they would do on a hike.

I got out of the car and followed her down a steep pathway. It was root bare and smelling of attic. Actually it was less like a pathway, and more like one hundred and fifty years of erosion. At the bottom she stopped for a moment and I wondered what she was looking at. It seemed like she was remembering something. I worried she may turn and head back to her car. But she didn’t she just stood there watching the space in front of her near the river.


Somehow I felt safe near this woman she seemed so worldly she was the type to rescue people, like a mother. But you could tell she had no children. It made her seem all the more comforting like every inch of her would focus on you. I knew there was a man standing behind me. He had followed me up the hill and back down again. At the top I felt his presence a little too close and I wondered how long it would take a rescue team to get to get to me.

You could smell him, this man, it was distinct. He once smoked a pipe. He didn’t any longer but he was also not the sort to dry clean his hunting jacket, the old wood smell pierced through the scent of leaves in fall and had begun to remind me of the smell of a new England attic just before the snow.

I thought he was attractive and began to fantasize about him catching up to me and whispering something in my ear.

“I’ve seen you everywhere. You’re the one who is always carrying a manila envelope from that office downtown. You’re the one who looks so charming in old tweed suits, you can get away with loafers.” He’d pull a picnic basket out from behind a tree and there would be a blanket folded on the top. It would be the same brown and orange and yellow wool as his jacket only in a wider stripe.
He would lay the blanket down and pull out a flask of whiskey to warm us as the sun was setting. Inside the basket there would be nutty cheeses and meats, boring crackers and some dates. Also there would be one perfect tiny little empire state apple and we’d pass it back and forth between ourselves taking the tiniest bites. Always wanting to save the last taste for the other person.

He had stopped he was bent over and examining something on the base of a maple tree. Lichen I thought, maybe he’s a scientist and just happened to hiking on the trail directly behind me. It wasn’t as though this trail wasn’t popular; it was brief and followed the edge of a shallow river. I guess it just seemed odd because it was noon and most people this time of year were indoors sipping herbal tea. That act alone was enough to make them feel healthy.

I looked down at my stiff hiking boots. I missed my loafers.


At the top of the trail she noticed me behind her and stopped, I wasn’t sure how I would explain myself so I bent over near a tree and found myself staring at an anthill. They were trailing in and out on the same path and the ones heading in were carrying something that looked like rice. I wonder where ants found rice out in the middle of the woods. And I hoped that it was cooked because I had heard if a tiny animal was to eat uncooked rice it would expand in it’s stomach killing it. These little ants seemed to be working so hard, storing up for the colder months to come. I really hoped they were not doing all of this work for an accidental cult killing.