við veginn

After hour upon hour of numbering, sorting, and coallating version after version of The Vanishing Hitchhiker, La Llorona, and countless narratives of white ladies and ghost dogs, she calls it a day. The sun has gone down. It is raining. Pouring. She has no umbrella and no raincoat. She didn't drive in that morning, but walked. Nothing for it: homeward on foot. She splashes through curbside puddles, and no one stops to offer her a lift.