Another Ordinary Day

It was an ordinary day, like any other day, a Sunday in specific. I was concentrating on the clues in the crossword puzzle on page A12 of the New York Times, when all of a sudden, the coldest breeze blew past the rust-colored leaves on my front lawn. It had been a mild autumn and this gust of wind was terribly unexpected. The wind turned turned the pages and stopped on an article that I had not noticed before, a missing person's story about a woman who had disappeared from her porch, without a trace.

She was described to of had long black hair, soft eyes, and intense energy about her. Although I had been interrupted from my weekly reading of the paper, I was instantly drawn into the story. What compelled me to continue reading was the uncanny correlation between this woman and myself. The police reported that they had found nothing on her porch but a crumpled copy of the Sunday paper and pair of glasses.

I glanced down and noticed my own glasses resting on the table next to me. I wondered for a moment what this young woman's glasses might have looked like. Were they thick black frames or something more slim and wire-rimmed like my own. "Huh" I sighed softly, "wonder what happened to her." As I continued to read on, more and more similarities began to arise. She was 27, as I was, and lived alone, as I did. There must have been some reason the wind took me to this page, and some reason that I had read this article on this day. But what was that reason? Had god given me a glimpse into the future, of a possible path laid out before me? Had the devil put the temptation before me of changing my future for an undisclosed price? Was my friend at the newspaper simply playing a cruel trick on me? Whatever the answer, I could not peel myself away from the paper or from my porch, not even for the life of me.

The woman, was only identified by her first initial, J, was an outgoing yet private woman. She punched in and punched out daily at her job, watched her share of prime-time television, and had only a few friends. Nothing struck me as a reason why she would be abducted or attacked. She was a typical, ordinary woman. Then, I thought to myself, "My god, was I this ordinary?" I mean, I did fun things... didn't I? My thoughts quickly skimmed over the past few weeks of activities. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were spent at the gym. Saturdays a little cleaning at home, maybe a movie or lunch with a friend and on Sundays, grocery shopping. "Oh, no!", I thought, I really am that ordinary.

And if I am this ordinary, if those were my glasses that were found, if that was my porch in the article, and if that was my paper they found crumpled on the floor, then I was her. I was the woman someone was coming for. Someone was coming for me. For, me. Me. To take me somewhere, to someplace, never to be heard of again. So I jumped to my feet, and almost as if they waited for me to finish the last lines of the article, they arrived write on time. I had finished the part where they described the assailants. But it was too late, or better yet too early, for it was then, when they, came. They were just as described, 2 men, dark clothes, black hats, and leather boots. My ordinary day was ending as extraordinary, as I could ever have imagined. I struggled. My glasses fell. My paper dropped. And then, I was gone. And the wind blew. And, the leaves rustled.