Odd

I was sitting in the park reading a book about suburban wildlife. I read the words, "-- park, scientists announced in 1981, has the highest population of squirrels per millimeter of any place in the cosmos." It was the very park I was sitting in!

Just as I read that sentence, I heard a voice say, "Squirrel?" I looked up and saw a gypsy-looking old woman sitting on a bench near me. "Did you say squirrel?" I asked. She nodded and smiled. Then she went back to feeding the pigeons. I stared at her. There was no context to her comment - and of all the words she might have said, how odd that she picked that one. It was like she read my mind and spoke the one word that was dominating my consciousness at that moment. I thought she might even be a figment of my imagination, that if I blinked she would disappear.