Confused, Alex stared at the woman, whose long, wavy hair and dark eyes seemed vaguely familiar. She couldn't determine the woman's age and that alarmed her for some reason. She felt that she was in some sort of strange time warp, where ordinary things could no longer be relied upon.

The woman continued to stare back at Alex and they seemed at an impasse until the woman stood up. She moved as the stream had moved, flowing and swift, but her movement was soundless. She lifted the quilt from Alex's lap, stepped off the porch and walked to a clear patch of ground a few feet away. She spread out the quilt, smoothing it carefully with her hands, which had a particular gracefulness about them. Though toughened, they looked like the hands of an artist.

Satisfied with her work, the woman looked up toward the porch and motioned for Alex to join her.

Although part of her resisted, Alex found herself climbing down from the porch and walking toward this odd visitor. There was something intriguing about this woman, who gestured for her to sit. She folded her legs under her and sat on the ground, somehow knowing she was not to sit upon the quilt. She sensed she was about to be given some sort of instruction.

As she looked intently into the woman's face, Alex felt as if she knew her. Her mind strained to remember where she had seen her before.

Then, suddenly, she knew this woman was the driver of the car at the cafe.

" I saw you a day or so ago down the road at a cafe. You were driving a car and dropped off a man and later drove away with him. Did you see me?" Alex blurted out, in an attempt to soften the impact of what was happening.

In response, the woman merely pointed to a section of the quilt, where there seemed to be a depiction of a sort of pathway. On one side of it there were shapes cut from dark-colored cloth. And on the other, the shapes were brightly colored. The woman used her ring-bedecked finger to trace the pathway, looking up frequently to make sure Alex was paying strict attention. Then, she pointed with her long, expressive hands at both sides of the path, indicating a mutual relationship. Then she folded her hands in her lap, peering into Alex's face with an expectant look.

Alex knew the woman was waiting for her to respond in some way, but she was unable to fathom what she should do.

As if reading her thoughts, the woman pointed to her mouth and made hand movements indicating talk.

"I don't know what you want me to talk about," Alex said. "I don't even know who you are."

Laughter burst forth from the woman and she replied, rocking with enjoyment, "Of course you do. You just told me I was the woman who was driving that car."

The woman's reply surprised Alex since she had assumed the woman was mute.

" Well, weren't you that woman?" Alex asked, feeling as though she had missed the point of a very obvious joke.

" If you say so. Certainly. I was that woman."

Feeling only slightly reassured, Alex recalled the younger woman she had seen in the rear of the car. "And who was that in the back seat?"

" Back seat? No one was in the back seat," the woman stated, frowning and tilting her head, looking perplexed. "It was only myself and the man you saw." The woman smiled an enigmatic smile.

" But I saw a woman in the back seat...a young woman," Alex said, her frustration mounting. She felt ill-equipped by her lack of an intellectual explanation for this strange situation.

Suddenly, the woman fell over backward, howling with laughter, arms wrapped around her sides. Tears rolled from her eyes as she cackled. The laughter finally subsided and the woman lay still on the earth, as if in death. Seconds, then minutes passed and there was no movement.

" My God, she's had a heart attack!"

Alex instinctively leapt up and bounded across the quilt to the prostrate woman. As she leaned down to feel for a pulse in the woman's neck, the woman's right eye flashed open, startling her.

" That was very good," said the woman, pulling herself up again to a sitting position and casually picking dry weeds from her skirt. "But try it again to see if you can stay on the path. You stepped right onto a cactus." She pointed to a green patch on the quilt, which was roughly shaped like the saguaro variety of cacti. "But you do that a lot anyway, don't you?"

" I don't know what you're talking about. I was only trying to help you. I thought you had died!" Alex said angrily. She stood up to her full height and crossed her arms solidly over her chest.

" I did. But you weren't supposed to save me. You were supposed to stay on the pathway."

" The pathway? What pathway? I really don't think you and I are on the same wavelength. You see, just a moment ago, you fell backward and looked as if you'd had a heart attack. So I ran over to you to see if I could help. You did lose consciousness, so I guess that's why you don't know what I did." Alex shifted her position and softened her stance, believing she now understood.

" Who lost consciousness?" the woman asked. Her eyes pierced Alex's, as her neck craned forward.

" You did when you fainted."

" I did?" The woman seemed to be intensely interested in Alex's rationale. "Tell me more about this losing consciousness business."

Suspecting she was the butt of some obscure joke, Alex nevertheless attempted once again to explain what had happened. She squatted down on her haunches, hands folded in front of her. She wanted to appear open but ready to run if need be.

" I guess maybe I acted prematurely. I don't have any medical training. It just looked to me like something had happened to you. But I really don't know what else I could have done. I acted on instinct."

" That wasn't instinct," the woman said.

" Then what was it?" Alex's shoulders tightened.

" Stupidity."

" Was it stupidity to try to save your life?" Alex felt the heat of anger rising from her chest into her neck and face.

" It's not my life you need to save."

Alex just stared, dumbfounded, into the woman's face.

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