Since I've yet to recieve permission from the paper which first ran the article, I'll have to use my own words here, so bear with me as I try to hit all the vital parts:
(For pictures of the scene: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cloudsandcandy/3052539021/in/set-72157609707768817/)
Melinda Gomez, a mother of three, was outside of her Queens home, on the fireescape, taking down the laundry, a "familiar task" by any measure of the term, so commonplace and dreary that she'd sooner fall asleep than expect any excitement to come of it.
And so there she was, taking down her underwear and her teenagers underwear and her husbands underwear, and all the sudden she had to ask, "What is under there?" because she saw something, like a giant pigeon, or else maybe a stray cat, hunched behind the familiar outlining of the slight gap--the ever so slight gap--between the wooden fence and the pile of bricks strewn between her building and the next, as seen in the photo.
Now she did not go back to her laundry duties so quickly, but continued to stare at the black lump, until she eventually decided, upon a minute of watching the thing without incident, that the thing was, in fact, a trash bag. It was night, of course, and she couldn't see so well.
From the clothesline, she takes down a white shirt and as soon as she does and her vision of the outside world is restored, the black thing is gone. She looks around. There is nothing and nobody. She does not like this one bit. She wants to go back in the house. But a storm is coming--this she can smell--and she assures herself that it was a sneaky black cat in that little gap, and nothing more--nothing more at all--and that she should hurry and get the dry clothes in before they get wet once more in the coming rainstorm.
Her hands work swiftly. There is a clap of thunder. And with this clap, which lasts no more than a second or two in length, there is also a ching, a metallic ching--like a buttoned shirt dropping on a fireescape--that lasts just a half second, if that, longer than the thunder, and which causes her to observe her own fireescape and find that she has dropped nothing, and then to observe the surrounding fireescapes, which are dark and brooding, for in the alley there is no light to speak of and the slightest distance can render things distorted if not invisible.
And then comes the luck--the luck which always seems to be involved in a ninja sighting--the light in her neihbor's kitchen goes on, and a glow is cast out the window, and in this glow, on the black iron fireescape, is a ninja, crouched, staring directly at poor Melindam Gomez, the lucky gal.
And she flings the laundry up and screams (most of her family and neighborhood can attest to this) and runs inside her open window and slams the window down and calls for her husband who laughs then gets slapped then exits the window to observe for himself and sees, well, nothing at all. There is the glowing window, the wooden fence and bricks below, and of course, the adjacent rooftops, but he sees nothing but the night and the city of New York and there is absolutely no ninja to speak of.
But to this day, Melinda swears on what she saw, says there is no doubt about it and while I would very much like to use her quotes, as convincing as they are, I am legally restricted from doing so. Needless to say, she claims that she saw the ninja, that it was not a cat, or a rat, or a pigeon, or an illusion, or a shadow coming out of her neighbor's kitchen, or the neighbor himself, but a ninja, all in black save for the slits of its eyes--a ninja. She does not know how it went so quickly from the ground to a fireescape platform fifteen feet up. But she does know that she believes in NYC ninja, because not only did she see a ninja, but she saw proof of its capabilities and thus authenticity; and this is why the Melinda Gomez sighting is one of the most highly regarded in the strange conspiracy ridden world of the NYC Ninja.
Melinda Gomez, a mother of three, was outside of her Queens home, on the fireescape, taking down the laundry, a "familiar task" by any measure of the term, so commonplace and dreary that she'd sooner fall asleep than expect any excitement to come of it.
And so there she was, taking down her underwear and her teenagers underwear and her husbands underwear, and all the sudden she had to ask, "What is under there?" because she saw something, like a giant pigeon, or else maybe a stray cat, hunched behind the familiar outlining of the slight gap--the ever so slight gap--between the wooden fence and the pile of bricks strewn between her building and the next, as seen in the photo.
Now she did not go back to her laundry duties so quickly, but continued to stare at the black lump, until she eventually decided, upon a minute of watching the thing without incident, that the thing was, in fact, a trash bag. It was night, of course, and she couldn't see so well.
From the clothesline, she takes down a white shirt and as soon as she does and her vision of the outside world is restored, the black thing is gone. She looks around. There is nothing and nobody. She does not like this one bit. She wants to go back in the house. But a storm is coming--this she can smell--and she assures herself that it was a sneaky black cat in that little gap, and nothing more--nothing more at all--and that she should hurry and get the dry clothes in before they get wet once more in the coming rainstorm.
Her hands work swiftly. There is a clap of thunder. And with this clap, which lasts no more than a second or two in length, there is also a ching, a metallic ching--like a buttoned shirt dropping on a fireescape--that lasts just a half second, if that, longer than the thunder, and which causes her to observe her own fireescape and find that she has dropped nothing, and then to observe the surrounding fireescapes, which are dark and brooding, for in the alley there is no light to speak of and the slightest distance can render things distorted if not invisible.
And then comes the luck--the luck which always seems to be involved in a ninja sighting--the light in her neihbor's kitchen goes on, and a glow is cast out the window, and in this glow, on the black iron fireescape, is a ninja, crouched, staring directly at poor Melindam Gomez, the lucky gal.
And she flings the laundry up and screams (most of her family and neighborhood can attest to this) and runs inside her open window and slams the window down and calls for her husband who laughs then gets slapped then exits the window to observe for himself and sees, well, nothing at all. There is the glowing window, the wooden fence and bricks below, and of course, the adjacent rooftops, but he sees nothing but the night and the city of New York and there is absolutely no ninja to speak of.
But to this day, Melinda swears on what she saw, says there is no doubt about it and while I would very much like to use her quotes, as convincing as they are, I am legally restricted from doing so. Needless to say, she claims that she saw the ninja, that it was not a cat, or a rat, or a pigeon, or an illusion, or a shadow coming out of her neighbor's kitchen, or the neighbor himself, but a ninja, all in black save for the slits of its eyes--a ninja. She does not know how it went so quickly from the ground to a fireescape platform fifteen feet up. But she does know that she believes in NYC ninja, because not only did she see a ninja, but she saw proof of its capabilities and thus authenticity; and this is why the Melinda Gomez sighting is one of the most highly regarded in the strange conspiracy ridden world of the NYC Ninja.
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