Fierce

She must have stood at least six feet tall.  Walking past me in the parking lot towards the breast center, I couldn't help but solicitously stare.  Her sinewy torso caused ripples in the abdomen of her t-shirt.  She was elegantly thin.  One would never have used the word gaunt.

Her jeans clung to her body like a glove.  Her strides were long and confident.  Maybe a touch of midriff was showing.  I dared not look too closely for fear of being discovered.  She was ageless.  At first I thought youngish, or possibly middle aged?  She defied classification.

She walked with the apathy of a model, and the decisiveness of a warrior.  There was no doubt her taut muscles were contracting towards battle.  She led with her chest, supporting the swan like elongation of her neck.  Her head was perfectly perched atop.  Her recently shorn scalp added to the sleekness of her sculpted facade.

The timber of my voice humbled, I mouthed the word in an anemic attempt to be heard.

Fierce.

This wasn't a woman to be crossed.

Certainly not by a self indulgent doctor,

nor some trifling cancer.