hijab

        She draws stares while in the midst of striding to nowhere in particular. This woman was covered in a thick garb from head to hemline in a thick biegish brown and green oriental patterned robe that has the look of exotic window drapery. This exceptional dress drew stares even though the woman is physically short, the contrast against western style dress is glaring. Sometimes the woman would wear a veil over the lower half of her face so that only her bright quietly intense eyes that peered steadily and unnervingly. This woman had a fair Caucasian complexion with intense bright blue eyes that had a weighted gaze brought on by a special state.
        What sort of special state...the kind of special circumstance that makes this woman stride purposefully to nowhere in particular, the state that makes her approach civil service workers who step out from their work place for a quick nic fix in order to be spoken to in a way that makes them shift uncomfortably. The hem of her exotic robe dragged against the coarse dusty pavement and consequently was worn to tatters in a dramatic zigzag rip-torn pattern so that now in swish-swish movements her pale bare ankles were exposed.
        It was unnerving the way this woman watched and dramatically approached in billowing robes people who waited on intersections. It was as if she would approach someone to foretell some imminent disaster or prophecy where the mind already made up various scenarios of self fulfilling doom. This is where xenophobic tendencies came out in the majority.
        It was enough that she was a street wanderer aimlessly moving about, but to be dressed in an outfit of an almost political significance, and the effects of a harried impoverished state was clearly visible.
She crept up on unsuspecting corporate employees who were out day dreaming, and speak to them in a low, gently fanatic voice. The listener would start in surprise to be doubly surprised when she/he saw the loudness of her dress and in a moment this garbed woman would stride purposefully away. The office worker would be left jarred and bewildered.
        Yet it was not so much that this woman looked and dressed uniquely as it was her aura. This is a multicultural city and exotically dressed people are not something unique in itself. The veiled one was a recurring figure in this intersection as well as the downtown core. People saw and hence vaguely knew of her.
        In the mid afternoon on some days this wandering woman ate alone, unnoticed in the dividing line space on University where vast historical monuments dedicated to wars and people stood. The mantled one sits at the base of one of the platforms and eats from a bag in the midst of rapid unnerving traffic that streams by either side. During the summer, alcoholics might also be seen in this dividing space rendered unconscious on a patch of grass, bench or pavement.