“It’s simple sorcery.” I’m impatient to get on with my critique of our sister Kari’s latest fan fiction but eight year old boys are the worst audience. My brother Barry is not only the baby but he’s the only male in a very feminist all female household. Mom is always telling me to be patient with him but he’s not even looking at me as he repeats “Sore sari?”
I track his gaze across the subway car and nudge him with my elbow.
“Stop staring,” I try to whisper without moving my mouth. I’m trying to be subtle because one of us has to be. Barry is mesmerized. He literally cannot resist this woman’s gravitational pull and is ever so subtly leaning forward. I very un-subtly yank him back upright before god forbid he reaches out to try to touch her. I mean I get it, I’ve never seen a woman like her either. Technically we can’t see her, maybe she’s a girl, but we’ve never seen a hijab like this, that is for sure. There is only the tiniest slit of an opening across her eyes. The black fabric is dense and stiff and I am suddenly unbearably claustrophobic.
8 min on the F train, 4.30.14
prompt from Speak the Speech! Shakespeare’s Monologues Illuminated by R. Silverbush and S. Plotkin
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