(666) INFRID

(Authors note: I’m fictionalizing this because I can’t prove it. However, the same can be said about my stories ‘Squirrel Friend’ and ‘Wet Dream’, which were just as real… I’ll leave it up to you. Also know that this event happened shortly after midnight on Monday, which means it was really Tuesday, 06/06/06, so I’ll submit it to the contest, but I don’t care about winning or loosing or points or any of that crap. I just wanted to document the event. I came here to post it as a story, and noticed that a contest was going on *shrugs* Again, make of it what you will, I don’t care.)



INFRID


I saw her again. I haven’t seen her since I left Alaska. Actually, I didn’t even see her then… All I saw then was her shadow on the wall, the occasional bare footprint in the frost on the freezer floor, and, every once in a while, a stray snowball upside the back of my head when no one was around… but I know it was her.

This time I was in Queens, New York. Woodside, to be exact. It was after midnight, and I was waiting for the 7 train. If you aren’t familiar with the area, just know that not all subways run underground. Sometimes the trains run on elevated tracks above street level. That’s what the Woodside station is like; two long slabs of concrete held forty feet in the air by a bunch of rusty old steel I-beams and separated by electrified steel rails.

The only way on to said slabs of concrete is up the stairs, which are located in the middle of the platform. Surrounding the platform on both sides are the aforementioned electrified rails and empty space. No One is getting a free ride here in good old NYC.

I’m the only dude on the platform… waiting. I walk all the way to one end, turn around, and then walk all the way to the other… waiting.

I turn around again and begin to walk back when an East bound train pulls into the other platform… (I’m waiting for the West bound one) There’s about thirty feet of empty platform behind me, two blocks of empty platform (and the stairs) in front of me.

People get off the East bound train and begin walking down the other platform towards their set of stairs. Since I’m near the end of the platforms, I have a nice long view of all the people getting off, and, joy of joys, I get to watch them all walk away from me.

No big deal if they happen to be frumpy, dumpy, or hairy old guys, rather pleasant if they happen to be the gender I prefer and kind of cute.

She happens to be the gender I prefer, and, from where I was standing and from what I could see, she was more than kind of cute. I watched her walk away from me. It was a ways to the stairs, so I watched her walk for a good long time.

The first thing that I noticed, believe it or not, were her clothes. They impressed me in that way that a nice sunny day just naturally does Not impress you… it’s so beautiful, no normal, so natural and unassuming… This person was actualized. This person was not a ‘wannabe’. This person was not trying. This person simply Was. And what it was was Cool.

Then I noticed the way she walked. Sure, there was wiggle, there was sway, but there was nothing pretentious or sultry about it. Sexy? Sure. Sultry? No. The word that comes closest, although it carries an age connotation that just doesn’t apply here, is ‘Stately’.

I watched her all the way to the stairs, and then she was gone.

Now then, admittedly I was staring, admittedly I was a bit mesmerized, but the Fact of the matter is, I was standing alone on a slab of concrete no wider than a sidewalk, forty feet in the air, and facing the stairwell (the only means of access/egress) to my platform: No Way In Hell was anybody or anything getting up onto my platform without me seeing them.

Finally, everybody was gone. Once again I was all alone, and still waiting for my train.

I turned around.

There should have been about thirty feet of empty concrete between me and the end of the platform.

Instead what I saw was thirty feet of concrete and her. She was at the very end of the platform and just starting her walk towards the stairs. She never looked at me, although her eyes did catch in the light and flash like cats eyes.

At first I was just too freeked to do much of anything, I simply watched, not really believing what I was seeing. Then she passed me and began to walk away from me. It was the same girl I had just seen on the other platform… same clothes, same walk… it was her.

As she walked away from me I noticed her shadow… there were multiple shadows on the ground due to the number of overhead lights, but even with that I could still tell that something wasn’t quite right. Along with the normal human looking blobby shadow, there was an extra blob coming out of her back… something not seen when I looked directly at her, but clearly there in her shadow.

The extra blobby shadow looked very much like a set of wings. Not angel wings, not fluffy feathery friendly wings… These were more like bat wings, or demon wings…

She was an Infrid. In fact, I believe she was The Infrid. The same one I had seen in Alaska and haven’t seen in over six years…

And now she is here in NYC. What this means for the people of the city, I don’t know. However, I do anticipate some Very Interesting times ahead for yours truly.

rock on
twj
june 9, 2006


(Afterword: I suppose I could have fictionalized some dialog between us in order to stay within the contest rules, but no words were spoken. Any communication between us was non-verbal. Again, I just wanted to document the event, came here to post it as a short story, saw the contest, realized that the event happened on the date in question, so here I am *shrugs* Make of it what you will. And sleep tight *grins* twj)

[edit on 9-6-2006 by torbjon]