Malicia, Part One

There are some stretches in the Proctor district that still have the quaint cobblestones of a bygone age. It was on one of these streets where I most often met her.

In my second year at Puget Sound, I was finally getting my bearings, and yet still feeling an odd sort of confinement I get when I’m in a strange place. I often wondered from my quarters in campus housing to kind of get feel for the area, mostly after dark, when everyone else had had their dinner and evening socializing.

I got out the street map of the area, and glanced at the different areas on the map. I wondered how certain streets got their names, and if, say, the First Street here in Tacoma had become the same row of warehouses and shady characters as the First Street in Pocatello, like it might be some sociological phenomenon.

One night in early October, I was especially tired for no really good reason. Boredom, most likely, added to the effect that a week straight of overcast skies, rain, and being confined indoors just saps the energy right out of my being. I put on a sweater and my favorite coat, (the long, wool one I used to dress up as Dr. Who on Halloween), and my increasingly decrepit fedora.

Out the door, and to the sidewalk… North, I thought, or maybe to the waterfront in Ruston, who knows? I shoved my hands in my pockets, and started walking, letting my mind wander a bit, although it never strayed too far from, “Nice street lamp, interesting house, mind the puddle…”

Before long, I had meandered up a street and found myself in what appeared to be an isolated commercial district, with a few blocks of small hardware stores, craft shops, an odd restaurant here and there, most of them appeared to be mom and pop operations…

In the faint drizzle, in the faint light of another period-looking street light ahead, a lone figure was walking in my direction. Something about the gait told me it was probably female. I didn’t think too much about her, although it did seem odd that I was not the only one without the sense to come in out of the rain.
She seemed to vanish, blending into the dark between the lights, but faded back into view as she approached the next spot of light, as I too must have appeared as I walked into the same area.

The color. The lamps cast a cold, orange light on everything within its radius. Nothing looked quite right in this glow, but, in deference to 500 years of cultural conditioning that told me to keep my eyes straight ahead, I glanced over at her, and noticed she was dressed mostly in a long, black coat, but there was something about the color of everything else… such a dark, cool purple, that she seemed almost to radiate ultra-violet.

I could see her turn her head, and give me a sideward glance. Not hostile, but impassive. I kept walking on the opposite side of the street, and right before I crept back into the darkness between the light pools, I glanced back over my shoulder, and there she was, looking back at me with dark eyes from behind her dripping bangs, fading again back into the night.

The stillness of the night just had a lead brick dropped into the middle, and the ripples wouldn’t calm down. I paused in the middle of the street, too confused to walk any further, one way or another. I began to come to, and realized I was beginning to smell like a wet dog.

Probably time to go home, or at least someplace dry. My legs were very slow to react to the brain telling them to just move. Finally, a calf twitched, and the sole of one shoe began to grind across the stonework of the street, then planted itself, waiting for the other leg to do the same. At last, I was on my way, not so much lost in thought, but certainly muddled in… something.

I got back to my room, saying nothing to my housemates. I found my pajamas, and dropped off to sleep without even turning out the light.