I sat high in the tree, practically hidden by the branches and leaves, watching the world go by. Along the side of the less-traveled road, she approached my tree, clearly soused given her unusual walking pattern and her disheveled clothing. Most telling was the fact that her blouse was hanging open, only the buttons below her swinging breasts holding the untucked garment closed, and she clearly wore no bra, very strange indeed for a beautiful young woman walking alone in the moonlight along a barely-used road leading away from the university. She looked similar to the schoolgirls I would sometimes see pass through my territory early in the morning: white blouse, red tie, plaid skirt, white knee-high socks, plain black shoes. However, this young woman was clearly taller and somewhat older, and definitely missing the red tie to help close the blouse; she was also missing the backpack or satchel that the schoolgirls of the morning would typically carry with them.
I made a soft sound, and she did not look up toward me. I highly doubt that she could have seen me if she had looked in my direction, but the fact that her head did not turn at all, did not lift in the slightest, confirmed my suspicion: This young woman was indeed inebriated. And the closer she came to the base of my tree, the more prevalent the fact that she was concentrating almost entirely on simply walking, simply placing one foot firmly in front of the other even as she veered from side to side in the small stony berm alongside the paved road.
Clearly, she did not know. Then again, none of the people in my territory seemed to know. If she did indeed know, she would not be trudging alongside this lonely road so late into the night, especially not alone.
Just as she passed the base of my tree, the young woman fell. It was definitely not a graceful fall, certainly not a fall like the martial artists I might occasionally see practicing in the small field across the road early on some mornings. Instead, she fell with the gracelessness of a rock knocked off the top of a cliff: straight down without preamble, without any attempt to break the fall.
Her fall caused the skirt to rise up, and I was not particularly surprised to see that she was not wearing the white panty typical of the young schoolgirls I would see in the mornings. She was a pathetic sight, prone upon the berm, her reddish hair obscuring her face, but the sounds she produced and the expansion and contraction of her upper torso indicating that she was indeed crying, another condition I had witnessed from people – particularly from the young schoolgirls – in the past. In fact, I had witnessed this very same condition in each of the previous three nights from other young women who had suddenly come to learn of the threat to them.
