Shiftkitty
Registered User
This happened to me years ago when I was working at the Winchester Mystery House. It was my lunch break, so I grabbed a hotdog and a soda from the snack bar and was just starting to tuck into it when a homeless lady entered. The grounds were free to the public, it was the tour you had to pay for. All of the tables were taken, so she asked if she could sit at my table, which was a rickety little “employee table” near the back by the dumpster. Representing the company, I couldn’t be rude, so I agreed. Besides, what was I going to do? Say ‘no’ because she was a bum? She sat down, set her pack beside her, and began to drink the coffee she had bought. I figured if she got weird, I could trip the test beep on my pager and make a polite exit under the guise of being called to clean up a mess.
About 15 minutes or so through, she got this strange look to her eye. It wasn’t alarming, it was more, I don’t know, she was about to reveal a secret. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
‘Uh-oh,’ I thought. ‘Time to go.’
“I’ve been alive forever,” she said.
‘If she starts singing Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs”, forget about manners. I’m bolting,’ I thought.
While I don’t recall verbatim what she said, I can tell you she started sounding like a mad woman, spilling out stories of riding in a chariot with an advisor to Ramses II, meeting Socrates, serving in a Sumerian temple, living in the Serengeti, watching them build the Wall of China, going to see Shakespeare’s first play, marveling when she saw an automobile for the first time, wondering if this Christianity movement was going to catch on, waiting for her man to come back from a raid on England (he was a Viking, apparently), and so many other incidental things that sounded as casual to her as though she was telling me about a day at an amusement park. It was quite some ways through her tale that I realized she was talking about past lives!
As she got up to go, she reached into her pocket and produced a small flower. I have no idea what kind it was, a violet maybe, and she gave it to me.
“It’s a 2,000 year old flower,” she said. “Its first seed was dropped before Jesus Christ walked the Earth. It has already dropped its seed for this time.”
“Why give it to me?” I asked.
“So you remember,” she said. Then she walked away and I noticed that I had overstayed my lunch break.
I kept that 2,000 year old flower. It’s between the pages of an antique book. When I open the book and contemplate the flower, I remember the homeless lady and her tale. She seemed like she wasn’t worried about being homeless, like she knew it was just a temporary thing. Who knows? Maybe in her next life she’ll be a queen and will tell someone about the day she gave a 2,000 year old flower and an aeon of hidden wisdom to a janitor.
About 15 minutes or so through, she got this strange look to her eye. It wasn’t alarming, it was more, I don’t know, she was about to reveal a secret. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
‘Uh-oh,’ I thought. ‘Time to go.’
“I’ve been alive forever,” she said.
‘If she starts singing Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs”, forget about manners. I’m bolting,’ I thought.
While I don’t recall verbatim what she said, I can tell you she started sounding like a mad woman, spilling out stories of riding in a chariot with an advisor to Ramses II, meeting Socrates, serving in a Sumerian temple, living in the Serengeti, watching them build the Wall of China, going to see Shakespeare’s first play, marveling when she saw an automobile for the first time, wondering if this Christianity movement was going to catch on, waiting for her man to come back from a raid on England (he was a Viking, apparently), and so many other incidental things that sounded as casual to her as though she was telling me about a day at an amusement park. It was quite some ways through her tale that I realized she was talking about past lives!
As she got up to go, she reached into her pocket and produced a small flower. I have no idea what kind it was, a violet maybe, and she gave it to me.
“It’s a 2,000 year old flower,” she said. “Its first seed was dropped before Jesus Christ walked the Earth. It has already dropped its seed for this time.”
“Why give it to me?” I asked.
“So you remember,” she said. Then she walked away and I noticed that I had overstayed my lunch break.
I kept that 2,000 year old flower. It’s between the pages of an antique book. When I open the book and contemplate the flower, I remember the homeless lady and her tale. She seemed like she wasn’t worried about being homeless, like she knew it was just a temporary thing. Who knows? Maybe in her next life she’ll be a queen and will tell someone about the day she gave a 2,000 year old flower and an aeon of hidden wisdom to a janitor.
