The Red Poncho
Tired after the day’s work, she dragged herself through the parking lot. The little rays of sunshine pouring through the gaps in the walls reminded her it was summer and the sun still shone at half past 4. Great, she thought - another reason to feel worse about being cooped up in a lab in front of a screen under boring blue lights on a gorgeous day like this! The parking lot felt unusually quiet, and despite the sun, still felt chilly. She wrapped her blood red poncho tighter around herself, wishing the monumental jeeps parked were not blocking the sun rays.
And then she heard it. A whistle. Not a warm, jolly tune. An ominously rhythmic one. And every other sound in the world seemed to disappear. All was silent except for that whistle. She looked around for the source – a teenage kid walking to his car, or a middle-aged man striding with his briefcase, or some psycho killer waiting to make her his next victim. But her eyes were met with motionless cars and moving shadows of the leaves in the trees outside, dancing in the breeze against the little sunlight that peeked through the shadows. Feeling rather creeped out, she started walking faster towards the exit to the SkyTrain station.
And suddenly, a blur of blue rushed past her. So close that her poncho blew back as if trying to pull her backwards. Shocked, she halted. Glancing back, there was nothing. Scared out of her wits, she almost broke into a run when she noticed the blue in front of her. And at that moment, she felt like the stupidest person alive. A little kid in blue overalls was whistling and prancing around naughtily. Their eyes met. His bright blue eyes were the piercing blue of a glacial lake, but there was something in those eyes. Naughty was not the word to describe it - more like devilish. To break her chain of thought as she stared mesmerized at those eyes, the young boy shyly ran past her. Laughing at herself for being scared of a child moments before, she started walking at her usual pace towards the exit.
The whistling had stopped, and she felt an overarching silence engulf her. Something did not feel right. What had she just seen? As realization dawned over her, she turned around sharply, sure that her eyes were deceiving her. Her mind told her immediately that she had made the wrong decision. All those horror movies she watched - and she still had not learned the lesson to walk away if your gut says something is wrong! Instead, she had to play detective! Because there stood the child. Silently. His blue eyes giving her a death stare. His head was turned directly towards her. But his body … his body was facing the way she had just walked from - away from her. As she tried to absorb the gruesome scene in front of her, mechanically, almost as if time had slowed down, the boy’s body turned 180 degrees, his feet dangling a few inches above the floor. And his whole being faced her. Before she had time to think, to yell for help or for her feet to unfreeze so she could run, the boy swooshed towards her like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day. The slight smirk on his face and those blue eyes were going to be the last thing her breathing soul ever saw! In the blink of an eye, all that was left was an empty parking lot with the sun still peeking in, shadows of the leaves dancing outside, and a lone red poncho on the cold concrete floor with its owner never to be seen again.