Invisible Women

Women & the Dead 4

When the woman down the hall lusts for a man, it is like his death. It isn’t her intention, but it can’t be helped. Only yesterday, the woman down the hall saw a man on a bicycle and surely he was attractive enough, but with senses as keen as a mongoose, she stuck her head to the full extension of neck out her window so many stories high to the clouds, and she sniffed. The woman down the hall from so high up caught the brief scent of his sweat, and it was as simple as that.

She memorized the texture of smell, the hint of the dinner he surely ate alone just last night, and when evening breached, the woman down the hall dressed in her most conservative black, and as she approached the restaurant, this man who was on his bicycle earlier that morning couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t resist her charm, her simple laugh, the way she listened to his trivial stories with care, and before he could acknowledge it, he was caught in a love so easy that even breathing became a chore.