Zombie Foot!

            I can’t get the image out of my head. Immediately, as I hurry down 31^st street toward McBryde, the macabre takes over my imagination. What the hell is going on? Or went on?

            Okay, now that I’ve got your attention, let me try to describe what I actually saw. The rest is all pure speculation. We hope!

            It was a perfectly ordinary morning walk on Day 43 of Shelter in Place. I’m marching down 31^st street, trying to get my heart pumping, thinking how much I miss swimming, but trying to concentrate on the little beauties of the neighborhood. The pomegranate and tangerine poppies floating in the sea of green grasses. The big black crow, scooping up a prize piece of trash. The blue blue sky with the soft white clouds floating overhead.

            And then, I glance into someone’s front lawn. There are multiple dead cars in the driveway. One ancient silver Honda Civic is parked on the unkempt front lawn. I wouldn’t have even noticed it today except that Ian had mentioned it yesterday on our foray. “That car looks like it hasn’t been driven in a while.” I had nodded, not really responding, distracted by my hurry to keep moving. Crazy Cat Lady’s House is directly across the street. Later, I think, of course, what I saw today is across the street from CCLH!

            So, this morning,  I glance at the silver Honda parked at a slant on the front lawn. And see, propped up against the front passenger window….

            A BLOODY FOOT!

            I am not kidding you! The foot was attached to a bloody leg, most of which I couldn’t see. I saw the big white shin with gashes of bright red blood dripping? Or were they dried? Down the face of the shin. The foot itself was bare and big and at a strange angle. I mean, sure it could have been attached to a body lying on the front seat on his back.

            Or not!

            What if it was a piece of a dismembered body? A murder gone bad? The assailants running out of time to throw the body in the bay and so they’d just stuffed it in the car and fled.

            Or what if this was an injured person? Someone who, what? Had been mauled by a dog? Or cut by a Weed Wacker? Or knifed by an angry roommate?

            Or what!???

            I wasn’t gonna stop to investigate. No way Jose! I hurried on, my imagination just spinning. What if it was like that episode of the Good Girls when the women killed the Bad Guy and cut up the body cuz it wouldn't fit in the mini-fridge in the garage? Or what if it was a Zombie? Don’t Zombies have blood dripping all over them? Don’t they sleep during the day and come out at night? No, that’s vampires, Cj.

  

          Or even worse. What if it was some homeless person who was injured and in need of medical attention but because of the Coronavirus and his probable lack of health insurance, he’d just taken refuge in the Honda. Propped his leg up so that he wouldn’t ‘bleed out’—they’re always bleeding out on Blue Bloods!

        I don’t know. And there was nothing I could do,  was there? I don’t think so. No way was I going back there. I’m never walking down that block again. First Crazy Cat Lady. Now Zombie Foot!
            I just wish I could get the image out of my mind. I thought writing it down would help, but it’s still there.  Damn! 

I  really need to get back in the pool!  No way would I see such a sight in the pool! Shelter in Place! Please stop soon! Before I go stark, raving, mad!