The bandage lady lived in the oldest house on the block. The exterior had cracks in the sun-faded paint everywhere and my dad joked about how there were probably termites so old they’d set up a retirement village in the walls. How it never came crashing down on itself was already a miracle. The grass in her backyard had grown tall and wild, becoming a veritable meadow of dandelions, white clover, onion grass, and more. And yet, despite the many deer, squirrels, various birds, and a fox or two in the neighborhood, not a single creature could ever be found on her property.
Her nickname had been granted long before we moved in. Rumors spread around that she constantly got plastic surgery from all the money she’d inherited from her late husband, or that she was a burn victim from a local fire, or that she was deformed beyond human recognition. Some kids even joked that she was a reptilian, hiding out in the cul-de-sac and waiting for her brethren aliens to finally invade.
She came out of the house exactly three times a day like clockwork: once at 1 PM to pick up whatever delivery food she’d ordered; once at 3 PM to water her front garden and pick up the mail; and once at 11 PM to sit in a fraying wicker lawn chair to look at the stars.
The local kids often dared each other to go talk to her at night. I only lost the spin once, but I’ll never forget our discussion.
“Good evening, miss,” I began, trying to be polite lest her bandages unravel and she unhinge her lizard-like jaw to swallow me whole. “What are you looking at?”
The bandage lady hardly reacted to my presence, all the while staring directly at the night sky. She pointed a finger upwards and I craned my neck, straining my muscles to find what she saw. Was Venus visible that night? Or was it some constellation I couldn’t remember?
“Do you believe in aliens?” She asked.
I nodded. I didn’t want her to try and prove me wrong if I said no. “They must be really far away though since they haven’t visited yet.”
She chuckled with such long pauses it sounded like she was trying to emulate a slowed recording of actual laughter. “Some haven’t,” she croaked. “They’re far too reliant on their stars.”
I looked up again, searching for evidence of her crazy theories. “The sun is our star, it gives everything life.” I got the feeling I should have paid more attention in science class.
One of the bandages around her face slipped off as she tilted her head. “Yes. You - we are like them, in that way. Stuck on a rock flying around a star.” She whirled her finger around and made a few whooshing noises. “Round and round we go, where we stop…”
“Nobody knows,” I finished.
The bandage lady froze. Her eyes moved to meet mine before her head, the loose wrapping unraveling further. “Says who?”
I clenched my jaw. It could have been a trick of the garage light or a bad angle, but the small bit of skin I could see where the taped gauze had fallen looked wrong. It was dark and cracked, and I got stuck in my head trying to figure out if she was burnt or actually a reptilian alien after all.
“Saysss who, child?” she repeated, standing up from her chair to tower over me.
“T-the song?” I stuttered. “It’s just a kid’s song.”
Her eyes slanted and I could have sworn eyelids flicked across them sideways. They appeared to begin glowing yellow as her pupils lengthened into slits.
“Yesss,” she sighed, “the rhyme. But we do know, child.” She bent over with a crunch as her torso folded on itself. “We know where it stopsss.”
My mouth went dry as more of the bandages fell off her body. Behind all the bindings was skin made of the night itself, dark and rippling and dotted with specks of light. She began to flicker and fade out, her form becoming ethereal as steam rose off her shoulders.
The bandage lady vanished forever that evening. And as the final star of her cosmic self transcended reality she whispered to me, “we just don’t know when.”