There Once was a Woman with Hair.

The first thing we noticed about her was the hair. Long, silk-like and down to her knees. Too well kept considering it wasn’t tied and left carelessly flowing in a wind the rest of us couldn’t feel or hear. Really, it should have been beautiful, but we were too unsettled to think the inconsistencies were anything but dangerous. 

We liked that a woman could be dangerous to us.

She didn’t seem to notice our group as she slowly walked through one of two roads that lead in and out of our tiny town. Or she didn’t seem to want to make eye contact. Both options hurt our newly forming egos. In a few seconds she’d already become our role model. We didn’t like being ignored. Surely, she would have to glance eventually. We were on a green patch off the side of the road with skipping ropes and a football. A green patch that she would most definitely pass by in the next minute or so, depending on just how sluggishly she paced down the middle of the road with her personal wind following obediently. 

We didn’t dare say hello. Or hi. Or greet her in any way. We were taught not to talk to strangers, and she was the strangest stranger we’d ever seen. It was obvious we should observe from a distance, even with her closing in. We were too young to know what was happening should be unheard of. That a woman should most definitely not have a personal wind following her. That actually no one should have a personal wind following them. We could identify what was happening was strange. But we couldn’t confirm it was impossible. We hadn’t seen enough of the world yet.

Her face is what we zoned in on next. It was old. This confused us as her hair was young. And by young we mean it was extraordinarily well kept and not at all grey. It was as though Rapunzel and her evil stepmother had combined in a series of unfortunate experiments and we were witnessing the horrifying results. Her entire face was made up of wrinkles joined together at various angles. But that was the only old part of her. The rest of the skin we could see was smooth and she didn’t walk like an old woman. She walked like a young woman in slow motion.

We thought that made her more dangerous. The more unknown something is, the more things that don’t make sense about something, the scarier that something becomes. No matter how unthreatening. We wished we could be that powerful. We had been raised to detect unsettling things. But to be the unsettling thing seemed a lot more fun.

By the time she passed us, we had stopped playing. We had stopped moving. We just watched her painfully. Waiting for something, absolutely anything to happen. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and we weren’t close enough to see whether they were young or old. Her hair moved to her right from her personal wind and the way it flowed repeated every few seconds. The same rhythm. Pre-designed.

We didn’t talk to her, and she didn’t acknowledge us. We didn’t approach her, and she didn’t approach us. The only thing that did happen was as she passed her personal wind blew in our direction. It was warm but not as warm as her flowing hair which brushed briefly past all our gaping faces before she continued on her way. She turned a corner, and we didn’t think to follow her. We were stupid not to follow her.

Because here’s the strange thing. Here’s the thing we can’t figure out. No one else saw her. We asked our parents. We asked our teachers. We asked our friends. We asked everyone. And when we described her in a desperate attempt to try and spark some memory in someone we were laughed at or considered to be ‘of concern’. We were of so much concern for a long, long while after we lost her.

It’s very possible she went right through our town and wasn’t here for longer than twenty or so minutes but even with that assumption it seems beyond bizarre that no one else could have spotted her. Because she wasn’t a hard thing to spot. Her clothes had been plain. Dark. Cheap. Uninteresting. But the woman, the woman was mesmerising.

This made it hard on us when we couldn’t identify her. Or prove her existence. We got a little…we got quite…we got completely depressed and then whole-heartedly obsessed. We had to know who she was. Who was she? Who? She had to be someone. We needed to know. And as children we barely needed to know anything.

We read fairy tales, myths, folklore. We studied. We looked at the roots of these stories, the origins. We learnt about history. We learnt about the history of every civilisation in recorded memory that ever came up with a story that was slightly supernatural. Slightly unusual. We became very smart for our age. Far too smart for any adult to ignore us and still we couldn’t find a reference to the exact combination we were looking for. Old face. Long hair. Personal warm wind.

Now we’re a little older than we were then and our curiosity for the whole matter has ceased to a slight nag of dissatisfaction every few weeks or months. But no matter how much we try to push it away, all of us agree we saw the same thing. A group of unrelated brains can’t all be the same kind of crazy. That would be crazy. 

We wish that we’d talked to her when we had the chance. We wish that we’d asked her questions. Tried to stop her walking away. She had to be physical because her hair touched us all. And we all agree we felt it. We’re actually a bit worried she might be dead now. Considering her old face. If she was as old as her face looked then we have little time left to solve this. 

That’s why we’re collectively writing to you. And hope you’re not the only reader who sees it.

We don’t want to start a witch hunt. That’s the last thing we want. But we do want to find her. We need to find her, for our sanity. So please, if you’re on a quiet street, if you’re in a completely ordinary looking place, if you want to find something abnormal. Look around for her. Just keep an eye out. And if you see her, try and talk to her. Try to get her to acknowledge you. Tap her on the shoulder and tell her she’s incredible.

We’re all growing our hair out now. It will be a while before we can get it as long as hers but we’re making good progress. And sometimes, if it’s windy, we’ll all go outside and let our longer and longer hair flow into tangles and then spend hours making it as nice and pretty as hers.

We need to meet her. We’d like to join her.

Let us know if you see anything.