Priscilla Johnson

I wrote this one day after visiting the JB Speed Art Museum looking for a piece to do a paper on for a class. Turned out to be a really interesting story as there was a Priscilla Johnson in the same time frame involved in an interview series with Lee Harvey Oswald

Priscilla Johnson
From the oversized ornate frame, her immense green eyes beckoned, “I have a secret, come see about me.” At first glance there was not much to see. A young woman in a bright green dress, nervously perched in a golden easy chair. But those eyes, haunted as any I’ve ever encountered. Something was terribly wrong with Priscilla? Possibly marital problems; yet there was no way to discern if she even had a husband as her ring finger was obscured from my view by the folds of her acid green dress.
Money problems perhaps. Or could it simply be the creepy plant that seemed to be making its way toward her awkward figure, mocking the shape of her bony fingers? Maybe she just needed a good meal considering the leanness of her entire body.

Then, stealing one more gaze into those penetrating eyes I concluded; her ghosts were much more complex than the material things of this world, Priscilla was troubled to the deepest recesses of her soul. I quickly left her, anxious to escape the uneasiness she stirred in me.
Whatever her secret, Priscilla’s eyes incited trepidation to the very core of my being; I once possessed those eyes, emitting piercing evidence of the torment in my soul. I've known the pain revealed in the flushness of Priscilla’s face, and although I’m never anxious to revisit, still I'm grateful, for mini-visits such as these only serve to remind me of the beautiful saving grace of my Savior by which I am now defined. For that I’m obliged to Priscilla, and I pray that somewhere in time, she too is now free from whatever haunted those beautiful green eyes.