Eden

Seventeen

We cross the bridge slowly. Slowly, because I still feel a little reluctant to meet other people, even though I'm making myself do it. We cross, and as we approach the far end of the bridge, we began to be able to see the crowd of people gathered there more clearly. They are at the very end of the bridge, where a side road running along the riverbanks crosses over our road. A market seems to have been set up there, I suppose because a crossroads means there are more people going past, and more customers.

Or perhaps because this is where the sunlight reaches to, from the afternoon sun, past the city's immense walls. The market is in the first of the shade, which I suppose makes it a cooler place to stand all day.

Or both, perhaps. Probably both.

We walk closer, anyway, walking a little uncertainly. I keep slowing down, and Lexi slows too, keeping pace with me.

I slow down, so I can look at the people carefully, from a distance. Suspiciously.

I'm nervous. These people look unusual to me. Meaning, really, that they don't look like the people I'd usually see down at the shops, at home. But this market doesn't really look like those shops very much either, not out in the open air, with goods laid out on tables, and with other people apparently selling things from hand-carts, or from trays and bags balanced around their hips and shoulders.

It's very different to what I'm used to, and that's probably what's unsettling me. I just need to get used to dealing with new things, I tell myself. And I probably will in time, mostly since I don't really have any choice.

I look at the people. I think. I decide I'll probably feel better if I can just quietly watch for a moment. So I decide to do that.

I look at the people, trying to reassure myself.

Trying to work out exactly how safe or unsafe I feel.

I look carefully, trying to work out who they are, and where we are, thinking about what I see.

What I see first are clothes. Mostly, people are wearing shift-dresses of undyed linen, the same as Lexi and me. The men are wearing the same kind of thing, which looks a bit odd on them, at least to me. Like sleeveless bathrobes, perhaps. Some of the men are also wearing kilts or skirts and have bare chests, and the skirts actually look less odd to me than the shifts do, although I'm not quite sure why.

I look around, thinking about that, and seeing differences in the clothes. Some of the dresses' hems are ripped, as Lexi's and mine are. A lot more have been torn and then sewn up, so really just taken up and shortened. Assuming all the dresses started off the same length, that is, which I vaguely assume they did. The place we woke up seemed like an efficient kind of place, where things would be very standardised and impersonal.

So I assume, anyway. I don't actually know. I still don't.

I do notice that sewed-up hems implies they have thread here. Which is interesting, I suppose.

Or maybe not. I'm still trying to work out exactly what to think.