When I gained consciousness, before I even felt the pain, before I felt that steady pounding that rattled my skull like a rapidly beating heart, and the alarming sensation that flames were licking my shoulder, I smelled roses. The scent was so strong I thought I might vomit. Someone’s perfume was intruding into my nose, battling with my senses. As it won the battle, I started to cough. I blinked open my eyes to discover the culprit of this malicious attack.
I saw a slim, pale face with bright-red lipstick painted on thick. I didn’t recognize her until I saw what she was doing. As I placed a hand on my painful shoulder, my fingers landed in a pool of sticky liquid… blood?! I panicked as they hit a hard, stick-like shape. Moving my hand along the stick, I came to the end and felt long, skinny fingers grasping something that was clasped onto the stick. I turned my head with a grimace and saw green-handled garden shears, gripping something that could quite possibly have been a disattached spoke from my bike, which was likely now a heap of junk. With astonishment, I realized that the person leaning over me was Penelope Kinkelford. And she was pulling a pointy wheel spoke out of my bloody shoulder. With her garden shears.
Penelope Kinkelford had lived in the house across from my family’s since before we had moved to Boston. And, as I had heard, many years before that. She never had a single light on in her house; the only thing illuminating her home was the shining television screen that could be seen through one of the second-floor windows twenty-four hours a day. Every day. It was difficult to tell because the television provided only a limited circle of light, but Penelope was never on her bed watching it. She just left it on all day. The only time I ever caught a glimpse of her was when I got home late; I could see her form meticulously pruning her topiary into perfectly shaped teardrops in the moonlight. Before I got out of the car, my friend and I would joke about the ghost across the street who came out only at night.
I came to again, groaning as the pounding in my head returned like the tick of a clock, programmed to keep on running until turned off. I watched Penelope hold up the spoke to the light of the sky, inspecting it with squinting eyes. Behind her was my house, and I saw that she had carried the pieces of my smashed bicycle to my porch. Carefully placing the spoke on a paper towel, she dabbed my shoulder with a cotton ball soaked with rubbing alcohol. I let out a scream as the alcohol sizzled on my skin.
“Shhhh,” she whispered, pressing a spindly finger over my lips. My closed eyes fought to open as they flooded with tears, burning as the light overwhelmed them. Penelope pressed a tissue to my eyes and wiped my dripping nose, then rolled me over onto my side. Moving my good arm to cradle my head, I felt Penelope reach into my back pocket and then felt an emptiness as she pulled out my phone. I was too out of it to fight her theft.
As I heard the beeps of numbers being dialed, she said, “Tell them to test you for tetanus.” Rolling me onto my back again, she placed the phone on my stomach. I heard a voice say,
“Hello, this is 911, what is your emergency?”
Penelope bent down to my ear, adding,
“And try not to fall asleep again; that would be bad if you have a concussion.” As the voice on my stomach continued to speak, Penelope got up, as easily as I’d ever seen any old lady stand, and swiftly walked into her house.
I never even got to say thank you.

Copyright©2015 by Susanna Kemp