Silk Scarf

• Isata Yansaneh-harleston
• Short Story
• 2018

A beeping alarm forced Samantha to succumb to the realisation of her loneliness and isolation. She began her walk down a path of hell; it was a battleground and day after wretched day she was outnumbered, by deadly weapons in the form of words, and battalions that were prepared to lunge at lonely Samantha with their weapons. Defenceless, and only pleading to fight her hunger, she continued her walk. Samantha grabbed an apple and a vegemite toast - it was all she could afford.
Samantha was agitated at the faddish brown strands that stubbornly refused to stay in their carefully placed position.

“For five months I’ve constantly tried to keep you guys untangled and as presentable as I can manage but… you’ve become a scraggly mess but I knew you weren’t going to last long. You are more worthless than a McDonald's ice-cream cone…”

Her reflection from the glass window was joined by the unwanted presence of Heather and her squad.

“So, you talk to your weave and your toast. Not surprised. Your outfits are always weird and unusual, not to mention ugly.” Heather abruptly stopped just so her ‘squad’ could laugh in sync at the ‘joke’.

Samantha sighed in resignation. She summoned the courage and took the opportunity to flee when the laughing began.

Heather wasn’t finished yet. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Samantha knew better than to reply; she was soon caged in and felt like she was an ant looking up to humans.

In no time her peers were yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight!!” No one would help so she stood there frozen in fear and trepidation for the actions Heather will inflict upon her.

The situation Samantha found herself in didn’t bring shivers down her spine until Samantha noticed Heather’s sly smirk get wider as the forming background crowd grew and surrounded them completely.

Samantha tried to apologise for whatever she might have done but the more she spoke the more angered Heather got. Heather’s patience was running out and her temper was flaring. Rage boiled through her body and without any rationality thought she pursed her lips and raised her hands back. And as hard as Heather could, she whipped it across Samantha’s face. The cracking sound of skin contacting echoed throughout the circle. The vibration of pain started in Samantha’s right jaw but rapidly spread throughout her whole body a large dark red mark of Heather’s hand mark was painfully displayed on her jaw. Samantha stared up to Heather with wide exhausting eyes as her hand slowly made it to her painfully aching cheek.

A hostile and remorseless Heather glared back and Samantha knew that not an organ in Heather's body could produce guilt for her actions.    

Samantha absorbed the trauma, swallowing the pain, then kicked her way slowly back to the surface, the pain sheeted through her with a terrible intensity.     

As she rose the faded-blue silk fabric that shielded her head as much as it could, slipped off revealing all her uncombed and bird’s-nest- hair. Her accessory collapsed peacefully onto the hard cement Samantha had fallen onto seconds before.

Samantha instantaneously grabbed her scarf, and immediately wrapped it around her insecurity - knowing that she was now exposed.


“Are we your next victims? Do you think that our country is going to turn out like yours? You can’t just torture… murder, a-and tear families apart and put them through misery and agony, that’s a norm where you’re from but tell your relatives it’s not welcomed here in Australia, and definitely not here in Parra. I saw the news -  I know what’s going on. Your people shooting our policemen in Parra. Don’t act like you care.”

Heather’s voice was soft, and a bit strained, like someone had hit her in the gut and she’s still recovering.

The words ‘your people’ processed in Samantha’s mind. But, deep down Samantha knew it wasn’t her fault and although the tragic scenario that happened outside NSW police HQ in Parramatta is extremely barbaric and inhuman. However, it still didn’t justify why Samantha was being treated like a she was a part of a cruel Middle Eastern terrorist group.

Samantha bit her lip. She knew what people thought about her culture. Her history. Her beliefs.
 
“N-no… it’s not my fault, and I don’t deserve this!” Samantha said, unafraid and in a calming and collected tone. An unfamiliar urge to speak up and state her thought challenged Samantha to say to everyone that was listening what she was concealing in her web of thoughts.

Confident beady-liquid, hazel eyes glanced at Heather and her battalions behind her.

“I am fine that my religion commands me to cover my body; why is my hijab your problem? My hijab is like my book cover. If you judge me by it you will NEVER know who I really am!” Each word was sincere and from her heart.

Samantha was exhausted from being silent and afraid, and could no longer be reticent and tongue-tied. Samantha flapped the dirt off her uniform skirt and walked with aplomb out of the speechless circle of her peers.

She walked purposefully blocking any insult or conversation that anyone with hostile behaviour was saying. Samantha knew that if she wanted to feel more accepted she had to be surrounded by optimistic and relatable friends. She was visionless before but know she realised that she’s not the only Muslim in her grade or school.

She stood up for herself made her stand out in an affirmative way.

“Samantha, what you said was amazing and your confidence is desirable! Please sit with us; we want to get to know you,” said Zainab, the Human Rights Advocate Leadership Council President and she motioned her other to her friends.

She wanted me to sit with her and her friends?
“I’d love to,” Samantha replied.

Everyone chuckled, Samantha couldn’t help but gaze at each of the different yet beautiful materials filled with different patterns, each person on the table had wrapped around their hair.

A foreign feeling of safety and love swarmed around her. Samantha, smirked as she remembered the old proverb, ‘Birds of a feather flock together’. She knew she’d found hers, shallow dreams had now become her reality.
How much longer until my luck crumbles? She pondered...