CHIMERA

"I tell them not to look at me. To stop looking at me. Who are they to lay eyes on me? Eyes made of sharpened steel. I don't like them, all those purposeful people with their black coats and paper cups. They walk with click-clacks, talking to bits of plastic. Red mouths biting words with white teeth. And they stare at me. The streets are long. They have everything; lights, giving-places, sleep-places..."

Rosie reached out and stopped the recording as she transcribed the old lady's words onto her computer screen. She had first seen the woman whilst volunteering with a local church charity that distributed food and hot drinks, along with more spiritual comfort. She had stood out amongst the drug addicts, displaced and alcoholics for a number of reasons. Her age was the first thing. Impossible to guess but her little bit of visible hair was stringy grey and her face wrinkled with dirt encrusted lines. Her clothes were another. Most customers to the van were reasonably dressed in jeans and trainers, with jackets or hoodies. None were particularly clean but it was possible to discern that they had been to a shelter on a semi regular basis for a bath and clean clothing. Not the old woman. She stank so highly that the rest of the group stood upwind of her and parted willingly when she approached the van for food.

Rosie wasn't sure what she was going to do with all this information, it might be useful material for her degree but the truth was, she had been horrifyingly fascinated when she first saw this apparition and after several weeks had engaged the woman with her non-threatening attention. When she began to talk, Rosie went prepared to secretly record her. She switched on the recording again.

"Giving-places? It's where people put things and I go and get them out again. Good things. Can't tell you what I do with them. Keeps them safe in my chariot. You God-botherers, you can't have them; not for all your chumbles and big brown eyes." At that, the old woman had shuffled away muttering, pushing her old trolley. She hadn't returned for two weeks. She had been such a pitiable figure, although not asking for pity; draped in bits of indescribable clothing with plastic bags tied over whatever she had on her feet. More pieces of plastic were somehow attached over her shoulders, tucked into a belt of some fashion, then left to drape downwards in a multi-coloured skirt. It was impossible to get near enough to discover how they all stayed put if one had any sense of smell. Rosie often felt a twist of pain somewhere deep inside when she thought of the old woman.

After two weeks she had staggered back to the van. She had added to her outfit and now sported two new plastic bags, both bright pink, that hung somewhat crookedly from her belt. Upon her head was a black, knitted hat with a battered sprig of green leaves woven into the wool. Rosie found a chicken sandwich among the donated leftovers and a cup of tomato soup.

"Shops? What do I want to go in a shop for? The world is pavement. It's where I am. No one wants me, I don't want them. People are different. I'm not one, I live different. Shops are for people. I watch them, like animals in a zoo: trapped they are by dwelling-places and things. I don't want to be like them. Free is what I am. I pick where I walk and put it in my chariot. Got lots of useful picks." Rosie remembered the secretive look that had stolen across the mass of wrinkles and she had quickly steered clear of the subject of the trolley and it's contents. "Sleep's dangerous. You can die in your sleep. Sleep-places are for daylight. Night is Death. Cats have got it right. I like cats. I can be a cat in sleep-places." The old woman closed her eyes for a second and then flashed them open. "See...cat. They have secret names like me. No one can know it. Nazi's call me a name and I laugh. It's not mine, they took it from another body." Rosie was shocked. Her youth made a little literal and she hadn't thought this woman could be old enough to have been in WW11. The woman wheezed out a laugh that was more groan than mirth from under her plastic bags. "Always moving; 'keep moving' they say. 'Can't stay here, Ma' they say. Bloody Nazis. Not my name; they think they know." She threw the crust of her sandwich down onto the tarmac, for even with a soaking in the remains of her soup it had defeated the one molar she had left.

Rosie stretched her arms high above her head as she sat at her keyboard to relieve her shoulders and wondered. Where did the old woman come from? Where was she going? There was a story here but she couldn't find the key to unlock it as the woman seemed only able to talk in the present and that was in a language that she had to decipher. Dimly she understood that the woman was dragging words long unused from a forgotten place, but time was running out. Rosie was going home for the summer break in a few weeks and wanted her curiosity satisfied. She also felt frustrated at feeling helpless to cure, with her ideals, the problem of the homeless. Surely no one wanted to live on the streets?

"Not chicken again?" the old woman grumbled. She graciously accepted ham with a mischievous grin as Rosie swapped the sandwich. "Good chumble this." Rosie attempted a question carefully and cautiously, ready to stop at the first sign of agitation. She couldn't afford to scare her off for another two weeks. "I know I like ham. I'm eating it. Why it matters if I've had it before?" The old woman scowled and grumbled as she shuffled aside from the van, pushing the trolley that seemed welded to her hands since she was never more than a couple of inches away from it.

Afterwards, when Rosie had time to think about it, it seemed that the trolley had finally broken away from her grip and set out onto the streets without it's constant companion and in that breaking free, it had broken the old woman. She had fallen like a wooden doll with each limb and her head hitting the pavement at different times, all bouncing jerkily and out of time with each other until momentum ceased and she lay terribly still. Utter silence filled the moment before action sprang into being, as though her fall had clattered and clanged with the cacophany of falling saucepans. Then eveybody moved. Some ran after the trolley, others left the van and ran to the old woman. Someone called an ambulance, a couple of addicts stole an armful of sandwiches and ran off and one enterprising young man jumped into the drivers seat of the van prepared to steal it, but was thwarted by the foresight and experience of Tony who had pocketed the keys as soon as he'd parked.

The ambulance carried her with loud clatterings and bangs as it rushed through the streets. The old woman woke up with faces peering at her, mouthing words she couldn't hear. She fought hard as hands poked, prodded, tugged and pulled at her clothes, her limbs, her life. She screamed and yelled in her confusion and pain until she was hoarse and then, utterly weakened, she lay passive and unresponsive as she retreated into herself. The nurses tutted and muttered to each other as they unravellled the old woman's protective cocoon. Hazardous waste bags began to fill with shredded plastic and layers of filthy and evil smelling cloth. The old woman lay in the single bedded side-room and made herself invisible. The underlayers of clothing were crusted and stuck to her body in many places and she moaned weakly as they were soaked free and tore her paper-thin skin. At last she was unravelled and lay like a stripped silk worm on the white, hospital sheets. Bowl after bowl of warm water and antiseptic wash revealed a body scarred from years of abuse by others and covered in open sores. She was pitiably thin and beneath her shell, her blood coursed through every vein and artery carrying infection from her sores.

"Light, too bright. Shadow sleep. Cats need sleep-places. And ham." The old woman saw nothing but grey. She was trapped in a grey world of people. There was a man who came and smiled and said things but his smile wasn't in his eyes and she knew; she had always known; the man wanted her gone. "Let me go!" but the man monster sat on her chest and she struggled to breathe. Nurses came and clattered about with fluid bags and she mouthed to them but they let the man monster continue sitting on her chest while they worked. He hated her. She knew because he had always hurt her that he hated her; and that was why she had run away from him.But he found her; he always found her. He wore a different disguise every time, but she knew it was him because he hurt her every time. The nurses left the room without even looking in her direction. They were part of it. They let him in and they left him there.

There were other rooms in her memory. Rooms she had been forced to stay in until she had paid off what she owed. But she never paid it off. She would run but he would always find her in one of his disguises. She became afraid of people because she knew they would give her back to the man. "Don't speak. He'll find you. Hide. Don't talk to strangers. Don't look at me. Who said you could look at me?!" Eventually the old woman succumbed to exhaustion as the man pressed even harder on her chest and she slept.

Rosie had spent an hour trying to find the old woman at the hospital before a busy sister was able to spare a few minutes. Rosie explained who she was for the umpteenth time only for the nurse to tell her she was too late. The unknown female had died in the night, she was very sorry but it was a merciful release as she was so ill. Rosie sat in the waiting area for a while and then gathered her bag and take-away coffee cup. She walked home slowly, unhindered by fears or memories but wondering, as she always would wonder in odd quiet moments throughout her life, just what story the old woman could have chosen to tell.