She walks away from the front door of her business, down the long sidewalk, broom in hand. She swishes the broom from side to side over the sidewalk. You can see her big round belly shake through her long thin sundress at each step she takes. As I walk past this scene, I smile and comment ” Boy, you sure are keeping things neat and tidy. I can barely sweep the inside of my house, never mind the outside.” Her eyes slowly move up from the area that she is sweeping and meet mine, so slowly in fact, that I stop walking to hear what she may say. I don’t want to be rude and keep walking, especially because I initiated the conversation. She whispers “people come here expecting me to be able to see into their souls. In doing so, they make themselves vulnerable. Their souls, they fall at their feet as they walk out and away. I must sweep them off of the sidewalk and onto the grass so that mother Earth can take them back. I do not want to be responsible for their souls.” I am at a loss for words. “Oh”, I say, and begin walking again.

When she speaks again, she seems like a totally different person, her voice is higher and louder, more assertive. “Take a minute. Come in. Get a reading. You want to know your future, no?” I stop again. I look past her, and I can see the sign. It announces : Halima’s Tarot Card Readings, Palm Readings, Psychic Consultation, and More. The sign is so crowded with words I have to look closely to catch it all. What’s the “and more”? Cleaning up lost, forgotten, mislaid, misplaced, fallen souls at her front door?

All at once I feel a coldness deep inside me. I shiver amidst this hot summer day. I back away from this woman, this space, so drastically and urgently that I stumble.

“Oh, don’t be afraid. Yes, I feel it too” she says as she looks into my eyes. She is whispering again.

I don’t speak, I cannot. I am suddenly overcome by fear, like from childhood at night when
you hear a sound in your house. But here, I can’t close my eyes. I can’t pull the covers over my head and curl into a ball.

I turn on one heal and run. I run. No chances taken here. I am not ready to give up my soul. And, that is what it felt like. Like she takes souls.

I make a mental note to never walk past her establishment again, to quite literally save my soul.