Woman with the Dead Rat

Wednesday early morning, on my way to work.

I was on my way to work, I had briefly stopped at a car mechanic. Dad had to get a few fixtures for the car. So while I waited at an open parking listening to AIR FM and enjoying warmth of the bright sunny rays, a woman poorly clad in rags walk towards my car. She is talking to someone…an invisible partner, giggling with a huge dead rat (the wild dead rat, almost 2 ft tall and fat) in her hand. She was swinging similar to the beat of the music playing in my car.
She swinged, danced and giggled.

The lady could have been around 32. Wore a gold ring and had the most beautiful smile. I watched her through my sunglasses. Everyone who passed her laughed at her with wariness. Everytime someone would smile, she’d go chasing them giggling, accompanied with her dead rat. The rat did not move on his own (as he was ‘Dead’) but as the woman swinged it…the dead ugly rat would follow a strange eerie rhythm. The woman crossed my car, so I turned back to look at her. I was curious. What was her next move, where was she headed?

The woman with the dead rat walked towards a nearby slum area where few construction workers were having their breakfast. They looked at her and her ‘dead rat’ and tried to shoo her away. The dead rat was decaying and had a horrifying stench! She giggled and giggled till her face turned red and turned to her right to exchange thoughts with her invisible partner. Few minutes later, the woman and her partner with their pet decided to walk away and not disturb, so she waved them a ‘bye’ with the giggle.

She walked backed towards my car and crossed it again. So I turned to look at her again (I was relieved as the neck didn’t feel anymore strain). She went near a fence and hung her dead rat on the barbed wire and instructed him to ‘stay-put’ and so did he. He had to obey his master with the invisible partner.’ instruction. She walked back and smiled at me. Waved a bye, giggled, crossed the road and with a single blink she was gone.