A Mid-Summer's Beasting
A few months ago, I noticed a new woman in the neighborhood. It's possible she's not new and that she only started appearing out in the street within the last several months. Regardless, I live on a dead end street and I started seeing her on a daily basis. She plods down the middle of the road carrying this child like a giant, limp starfish. Based on the size of the child, I'm guessing they're anywhere from 8 to 10 years old, which seems a little older than should be carried by most parents. Plus I've seen her out there in 100+ degree heat, stalking up and down the hot blacktop with the dead weight of this child strapped to her chest. She walks to the end of my street and then takes a right, heading down the longest street bisecting my neighborhood. Her walk is not a short one and it occurs multiple times a day. The child is rarely ever moving much, if at all. My writing partner believes there is some kind of neglect at play, having seen the child in little othe...