text: Many had seen her face, few heard her voice, and none knew her name. The Woman drifted about like a nomad -- never in one place for too long, and if one looked away for only a moment, there was a chance she would be gone. A vanishing act with no smoke or mirrors. A bicycle without handlebars. A joke with no punchline. Her days consisted of wandering around downtown engrossed in her own world. A typical morning for her began with jumping jacks and yoga poses in the park’s grass as the sun beamed brightly overhead. Dressed in stained, tattered clothing that indicated her homelessness, her morning workouts often earned curious stares from the elderly men dueling at the chess tables and annoyed grimaces from the soccer moms that spent more time on their phones than watching their children on the playground. It was hard to pinpoint the Woman’s age. Based on her appearance, the best estimate was that she was somewhere between thirty and forty-five years old. She may have actually been younger; though the lines and creases on her face signified the hard life she had lived, her eyes, which shone like two big spotlights of warmth and humility, gave her an impression of youth. She had tried mingling with some of the other local wanders in the past, which led to mixed results. The best being her brief friendship with an elderly woman named Mildred two summers ago. Mildred, known as the town’s “Crazy Cat Lady,” suffered from mental illness, as did the Woman herself and the bulk of the area’s homeless population. To those close to her, Mildred was sweeter than a birthday cake. Thanks to her being friendly with the owner of a small coffee shop, she received a cup of coffee and a warm croissant free of charge once a week. Mildred always made sure to share the croissant evenly; one half for Amethyst, her tabby cat, and the other one going to the Woman. Mildred’s behavior was dependent on both the time of day and whether she had Amethyst by her side. During daylight, with her feline companion in tow, she acted as a delightful grandmother, seemingly unaware (or unbothered) of her station in life. However, if her cat was out of sight or once the sun had gone down, Dr. Jekyll morphed into Mr. Hyde. The kindly grandmother would suddenly become a toxic witch. She would shout at vehicles that drove past. She would travel to the parts of downtown that saw heavy late-night foot traffic, such as the Entertainment District, to harass tourists. Once, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, Mildred traveled down there and caused a scene so bad that the Woman had to calm her down and pull the old lady aside. Mildred had been knocking over trash cans and hurling their spilled contents at pedestrians along with some expletives sprinkled in. “FUCK CUPID, AND FUCK YOU TOO, YOU STUPID WHORE!” was one of the lines she had yelled. The target of that insult was a little girl no older than six years old. One morning, after having spent the night sleeping under an overpass with Mildred and a few of the other wanderers, the Woman woke up to the sound of screams. Her eyes flashed open, darted around, and then she saw what had happened: Mildred’s cat Amethyst was lying in the middle of the street -- dead -- with its eyes rolled into the back of its head, tire marks across its belly, and its mouth wide open, as if it was screaming, the expression on its face frozen stiff like a fly trapped in a chunk of ancient amber. “Look what they did! LOOK WHAT THEY DID!” Mildred shouted, cradling the dead feline in her arms like an infant and pushing it near the Woman’s face to show her the horror. The Woman gagged. She could hear the animal’s bones cracking with each movement Mildred made. Eventually, she and the other wanderers were able to calm Mildred down long enough to get her out of the street and to give her feline friend a proper burial. Later that same night, the Woman was lying down in the same spot as before, under the overpass. Neither her nor any of the other wanderers had seen Mildred since the moment they buried her cat earlier in the day. They figured she was somewhere mourning in private. The Woman stayed awake for as long she could, fighting against her heavy eyelids. She wanted to make sure Mildred returned to her safely but eventually lost the battle with Mr. Sandman and drifted off to sleep. “I’ll be with you soon, sweetie! I promise!” The phrase was yelled over and over again. The screams reverberated throughout the area underneath the overpass, occasionally muffled by the semis driving on the bridge overhead, stirring people out of their tents and sleeping bags, and rousing the Woman from her slumber. Her eyes flung open and she sat up in a panic, scanning the area for the source of the commotion. Her head jerked around like a frightened crow until she saw the scene: Mildred, her hands, face and clothes covered in dirt, handcuffed to a stretcher and being hauled into the back of an ambulance. “No!” shouted the Woman. She got up and raced toward the vehicle. The Woman tried to get into the ambulance with Mildred but was held back by a paramedic and two police officers. She tried desperately to reach out to her, to grab her hand. Mildred reached back. The handcuffs hissed along the railing. The women's fingertips inches from each other. "They're trying to lock me away! You have to stop them!" Mildred pleaded. "Amethyst lives, I know it! Please, dear, you have to stop these bastards! You have to st--" The doors slammed shut. "Crazy old broad," muttered one of the officers. "Tried to dig up a dead cat. The hell's the matter with people these days?" He turned around and addressed the Woman. "Most likely, your friend's gonna be taking a trip up north to the crazy house. You wanna see her, you're gonna have to see her there." He left without a parting word and drove off into the night with his partner. The Woman stood in shock. Motionless. Her eyes watched the flashing lights on the ambulance and cruiser fade into the distance, the pulse of their rhythmic dance disappearing behind the looming shadows and towering buildings. After that incident, the Woman was scarred for life. She would bond with no one else ever again. Already a person of few words, her speech further whittled down to little more than murmurs and grunts. Yet still, whenever possible, she expressed her care for humanity. She once did it by putting a Band-Aid on a child who had scraped his knee after he fell off the swing set at the park. Another time, she managed to revive a fellow wanderer who was in the grips of an overdose by performing CPR on him until the paramedics showed up and took him to the hospital. And always, she would pick up any trash that had been littered in the park to keep it clean and spotless. The park authorities never failed to show their appreciation, making sure to provide her with bottled water and bags of chips to snack on whenever they could. Over time, she became known around town as the “Good Samaritan.” Thanks to her positive impact, people in the city even started treating the rest of the city’s homeless population with more compassion. The indignant scoffs and clutching of purses gave way to a spare dollar here, a bag of pretzels there and words of encouragement. As of now, roughly a year later, it appears that the Woman has vanished. Odds are, she may have met a tragic end, but one should have hope that she has simply wandered into another city to shine some light into a gray, dim metropolis. Wherever she is, one can be sure that none in the area know the Woman’s name, age, or origin. Almost certainly, most have seen her face. And few -- if any -- have ever heard her speak. But all, should they encounter her, will come to know her spirit.