She took a drag from the cigarette she had rolled with her own yellowed fingers and looked blankly at the man who was obviously smitten with her.

I waved hello at her.

She didn’t return my greeting; instead, she removed the wilting cigarette from her lips and exclaimed, “You look just like the way God said you would! This is amazing.”

“Oh,” I responded, completely unaware that God had heralded my arrival. “Thank you?”

“I had a vision—I am a visionary—that I would meet you and, in my vision, you looked just like the way you do! Your hair, your clothes—wow.” She took another drag from her cigarette while the man tried to recapture her attention.

“Stop talking to me—I’m trying to have a conversation here!” she yelled at him. He meekly took a few steps away, never taking his eyes off of her tobacco-aged face.

Turning back towards me, she smiled and tapped loose the ashes that had collected at the end of the burning paper. She looked down and saw my shoes.

“Oh! Even down to the shoes! God told me you’d be wearing shoes like that! I used to have a pair of shoes just like that—they were so comfortable. But that was a long time ago. I wonder how God knew you would look like that. Even down to the shoes. That’s amazing.”

The man approached her again, trying to enter her field of vision. Putting the cigarette between her chapped lips, she impatiently looked at him and demanded, “What?!”

He murmured something. She laughed. He spoke more. Boredom overtook her—she yawned— and she looked back at me.

“Thank God,” she said, crossing herself. “God brought you to me today and you look just the way you are supposed to. Thank God. He is amazing.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to believe.