A brief encounter

I was walking to Dave’s on a warm Dallas Summer day. Then, about fifty yards ahead of me, a woman was approaching me. She was holding her hands against her face and walking down the sidewalk towards me. The first thing I saw was the t-shirt with Christian iconography on it. The front was pretty much covered by a cartoonish wooden cross that looked like it was about to fall over and crush someone.

When I was close enough I realized she was holding a white washcloth against the left side of her face, maybe where the right hand of someone else had landed. I stopped walking. As she got closer I realized her whole face was puffy and swollen. It looked as though her eyes were about to be swallowed by her cheeks.

“Hey, are you okay?” I said and she just kept walking by and said “Yes, thank you.”