Enigma Woman

Enigma Woman

She puffed on her cigarette looking out into the city area around her. The woman looked drastically out of place yet no one stopped her or interfered with her plan – whatever that might have been.

She seemed nervous. At least she paced around the area just outside the door to the McDonald’s restaurant in which she had purchased something to eat. She took more drags on her cigarette as she moved first one way and then back.

She was scantily clad. A white hospital blanket rested on her shoulders. She clutched it to herself at the neckline with her free hand. A hospital gown was visible below the blanket in front. She wore slip-on slippers with thin soles. Her hair was gray and somewhat disheveled.

She was obviously alone. No other person was with her, spoke to her, or showed any overt interest in her. Where did she come from? How did she happen to have money to buy food? Why did no one say anything to her about where she came from or offer to take her back there?

Thankfully the summer weather was warm. She would not be cold even clad as she was. But, was she disoriented? Had she run away from somewhere? Did she have somewhere to go? Would the manager at the McDonald’s notify authorities that this poor soul seemed to be wandering about dressed in hospital attire?

Or is she a regular there who makes the trip to the McDonald’s from her own place and pays no heed to whatever she might be wearing? Is she a mental health patient living independently or perhaps in a group home? What will she do when she finishes her cigarette? Will she wander away from McDonald’s? Will she go back into the restaurant and eat something else? Perhaps she will call a cab and return to wherever she came from.

The woman was an enigma but one that sticks in your mind. It’s not usual to see an older woman in a McDonald’s dressed as she was. The mental picture tugs at you. If she were your mother, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, or acquaintance, would you want her to be in that kind of situation, dressed like that, with no one to assist her, to talk to her, or to guide her safely back wherever she belonged?

Should I have stepped in and attempted to do something, anything, to help? Me, a traveler, I know nothing about this city or its inhabitants and especially nothing about the blanket-clad woman? Or would I be inserting myself in a situation in which I did not belong? The options flitted through my mind quickly as I exited McDonald’s, walked by the enigma woman, climbed into my car, and drove away. I, like all the other patrons in the store, effectively ignored a woman who perhaps should have been attended to. But, I will never know.