She disappeared on the eve of the seventh of March. The wind had been blowing particularly fierce that night, miniature cyclones of leaves circling around those who dared outside, as if to court them in a dance. She had been standing on the corner of Main and Fifth, her hand stationed on top of her head to keep her hat in place and her free arm firmly coiled around a flickering lamppost.

Nobody who saw her questioned the fact that she had disappeared, in fact, she herself told anyone who would listen that she had felt her very person being ripped right out of her and she had witnessed it blow past Mascon Deli, down past the rusting, empty dumpsters, and out of sight. No one had seen it since, although Bradley Baker brought in a glass jar to his second grade class the next day for show in tell and told the fish-mouthed students that he had captured her soul in the glass confines the night before while he was Hufflin hunting. Although Mrs. Smith couldn't quite believe it, she wouldn't let Bradley open the jar to the classes ardent demands. A soul loose in the classroom? Now that was something Mrs. Smith was sure would constitute for an early dismissal and would without a doubt crush her blossoming career. Mrs. Smith dashed toward the emergency phone that called only the main office and sheriff's department, jumping over Lee Belle's head as she asked whether or not the soul could breathe without air holes. Mrs. Smith's legs moved at such an unbelievable speed as she heard Lee Belle's question it was astounding that she didn't fly off into the early morning light; if the soul had died without air, surely she wouldn't be considered an accomplice? She dialed one for Sheriff and fluttered her hands in anxious concern.

The jar was promptly given to Sheriff Swuthers who called her in to identify whether or not she was in the jar. As the volunteer deputies sunk their nails into their desks and opened their ears to even the soft buzzing of the flies, Swuthers opened the jar slowly and away from him. She gasped as a rush of air toppled her curls across her face. Well, of all the nerve! That soul definitely did not belong to her, she nearly shouted in clear offense as she quickly grabbed for her red purse and matching coat. Her soul had better manners than to ruffle a harmless stranger, she was sure.

There had been rumors, as of late, that the wind could be sorely knocked out of you, but never before had anyone in Briskon's Junction heard of the wind knocking you out of your own body. The ladies who dined at Fifth Street shook their plumbed heads in unison and whispered of the good old days when the younger generation knew better than to let themselves be ravaged by the wind. Oh the shame she had put on her family. What respectable, well to do boy would ever want to marry her now? To imagine, getting married in front of God and everybody to a girl who wasn't even there anymore. It is those drugs, Mrs. Maybury said in such an undertone it was almost as if she imagined to be struck down at any moment for uttering such a word. The other women tittered, but inside they nodded in unison. It was those drugs.

She couldn't remember ever taking any drugs and she emphatically denied the concealed accusations of the Fifth Street Coots. Mrs. Maybury sunk within herself, and darkly thought, of course she wouldn't remember taking those drugs, they ate at your mind for heaven's sake. She had seen a special about those drugs on her grandson's television just the other day. Mrs. Maybury still couldn't quite make out how they got those handsome newsmen to fit into such a small box. If only she were younger, she would like to find a way to climb right in with them.

On the fourth day, when her face had become gaunt and gray, the Women For the Sanitation of All Things Public held a last minute protest around the town's wishing well, which still during times of trouble, provided the town with water. The protest was thrown together and sloppy for the standards of the WFSATP because they had not known for certain whether it was the well or the sewers that they were being called to. Patricia Applebee made the decision that it was the well, the very life source of Briskon's Junction that her soul had taken residence. Their voices raised to the menacing pitch of banshees, they called for the purification of the well. Banners were waved, pamphlets were distributed, and she was ordered to the center of town. Call up your soul, Mrs. Applebee demanded, do you want us to drink it in, drink in your sins to poison our bodies? Clutching her purse to her chest, her eyes darting around to make certain that no one was in the position to push her in, she peered into the well. Oh, she exclaimed in a shaky breath of wonder and relief, that isn't my soul down there. The women peered in as well. That, she pointed toward the far side of the well, is an old plastic bag from Marshall's grocery store. The women shouted in disbelief. They had just held a protest at Marshall's the weekend before for their under-filling and overuse of plastic bags. Well, this time, they were bringing out the big guns, ones that hadn't been touched since the sixties; oh, there would be a bra burning tonight.

Her soul, in the hub bub of the WFSATP stampeding towards the east end of town, had been completely forgotten. She let out one shaky sigh as she imagined her life without being in it. The situation would take considerable getting used to. Resolutely, she turned toward the west and decided to go home. The day before, she had discovered that her crumpets, her golden, delicious crumpets tasted of dirt, and all that she ate tasted of dirt.

The wind picked up as she walked past the fading neon lights of the Laundromat. Her skirt blew up around her knees, and she didn't even bother to push it back down towards decency. A hoarse scream escaped her throat as a ghost of a touch brushed the bare skin of her elbow. She turned quickly and wobbled dangerously on her heels only to find herself face to face with the tallest man she had ever seen before. He brandished an arm and steadied her before she fell off the end of the sidewalk. You, she whispered in the Cinderella voice that always found her when she talked to men, are tall. He laughed. Just the other day, he said, I forgot to duck at night and my head scraped across the moon. A laugh, much like the strangled sound of a goose, tumbled from her mouth. He did not, like all men before him, liken her to a bird. If she had been there, this would be the moment feelings of love would crack through her.

Are you, he asked as an afterthought, the girl who lost herself? With some trepidation, she finally shook her head, signifying that yes, she was the one woman freak show of the century. This was the moment in which he would run in the opposite direction or call for an exorcism like her bible study had. You couldn't have an exorcism if something, evil or not, was missing she had cried in protest as they had gone in search of the priest.

They stood in a thought clouded silence for several moments.

He lifted a hand up and pushed it inside his chest. She stared transfixed as his face screwed up in concentration and his hand moved around as if grasping for something. He slowly pulled out a green and blue mass that made a noise like the time she had held a shell to her ear. You won't be able to survive very long without your soul, he told her. He put the twisting colors before her face and she stared in wonder at the beauty of their movements. The one glimpse she had of her soul had revealed a chain of red and gold links that did not seem comparable to his. Take half, he urged. He pulled at it, and the colors separated with a harsh tearing noise, and he seemed to shrink two inches in height.

It would be very selfish of her to take any of his, but her hand came up anyways to cup at the green portion. She pushed her hand inwards, toward the space below where her heart used to beat. She struggled to breathe as a salty breeze seemed to swirl within her chest. When air easily passed into her lungs, she looked up to see him empty handed. I'll be seeing you, he called as he walked toward the south end of town, next time it rains. She could already taste her crumpets, and she let the wind carry her the rest of the way home. The moon seemed just a fraction closer as it hung laughing in the sky.