Late Thursday night, in Woodland.
As I pulled into the convenience store parking lot, I saw a young blonde woman in a gold sports jacket leaving the store and looking at my car.
As I got out of my car, she approached and asked if I could give her a lift. "Where do you live?", I asked. She pointed in a vague and unconvincing way to the southeast. "Well, I'm going to go inside first," I said.
"Is it all right if I sit your car?" she asked. I looked around the parking lot to assess if anyone appeared to be watching or menacing her, then quietly asked "are you in some kind of trouble?" She looked around the parking lot. "I just want to sit in your car," she replied. "Well, I'm going to go inside first," I repeated.
Very peculiar. She wasn't acting like she wanted to sell something, like sex or drugs, and she didn't seem to be frightened, despite her badly-acted show of paranoia. Her motivations were - unclear.
Inside, I asked the convenience-store clerk about the woman. Apparently she had asked for merchandise for free, and had been loath to leave the store. "She said she had been in a hospital," he said. "A mental hospital?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. "She says she lives around here, but I don't know where. If she gets into your car, though, you won't be able to get her out." "Really?", I asked. The clerk nodded his head.
I left the convenience store uncertain about what to do. If I could get a solid address out of her I just might drive her home. Nevertheless, by the time I got outside, she had vanished into the Woodland night.
Peculiar - and she's still out there!
No comments:
Post a Comment