Her companion

The young woman has a limp. Also a wooden staff, ornately burned, which shows that the limp is committed to her and she to it. The staff shines on each end: one rubs the ground and the other her hand. Though indoors, she wears a leather cowboy hat and black sunglasses. A coiled wire figure-eight, or is it a tilted infinity, pins a pair of blue feathers to her hatband. She leans into one bookcase and then the next, going about chores in silence. There is no smile under the hat. The limp has introduced her to many more years than she owns. Still, she is content, and as anyone would, fills her tilted basket full.