Silent Witness

​The day started slowly. I woke up to a world wrapped in a gray fog blanket. Damp tendrils of mist drifted in the air. Droplets of water clung to leaves and dotted the windshield of my car.
I warmed my hands on my hot cup of coffee, breathing in the fragrant steam and waiting for the caffeine to kick in. The newspaper lay unopened on the table. I would get to it later.  It was to delightful to sit and sip my coffee while gazing out the window at the cool, damp, peaceful landscape.
That was the beginning.
In my reverie, I didn’t hear the footsteps creeping softly up behind me. I didn’t notice the quiet breathing on the back of my neck. Or feel the prick of the gleaming, sharp knife as it slipped between my ribs and pierced my heart.
Then, I was floating on that blanket of fog that somehow came into the house. Drifting slowly, ever slowly upward. Watching the scene in the kitchen unfold below be. I saw my body, slumped and bloody on the kitchen chair. The floor below the table was slick with blood. Rivers of red filled the seams between the floorboards.
Red footprints led out the back door. I followed them, drifting just below the ceiling and through the wall. It didn’t occur to me that drifting through a wall isn’t possible.
I saw a figure bending over to take off the hospital style booties that covered red running shoes. Pulling off surgical gloves and folding everything together. Then she stood and looked straight at me. I saw the face of my killer. She looked exultant at what she had just done. In love with the act of killing.
She would do it again. And I would follow, watching. A silent witness.

She joined the birds
A dimorphous spirit
“I saw,” she said
The birds accepted her
They joined in a circle in the sky