Eden

Eighteen

We keep walking forward, slowly, and get quite close to the edge of the market area, within perhaps twenty or thirty meters of it. I stop there, and Lexi stops beside me. I still want to look a little more, from a distance, cautiously.

I'm being cautious, but it seems like perhaps I don't need to be. No-one seems to be noticing us, especially. A few people glance over, but mostly they're all too busy bartering and talking and shouting out what it is they have to sell to pay attention to us, standing over here. Mostly, they ignore us. Mostly they ignore everyone who isn't actually right in front of them trying to buy things, as far as I can tell.

I keep looking around, looking at the crowd. I'm still trying to work out who everyone is, because it bothers me that so many people are here, and I don't know who they are, or why.

I start to look at their clothes again. I suppose just from habit, because where I'm from you look at clothes to see who people are, so I try to do the same thing here.

I look at clothes, and I think I learn a little.

I hope so, anyway. I mean, I hope what I see actually makes sense.

What's interesting, at least to me, is that even though most people seem to have started out with the same clothes, there is still fashion or different tastes or whatever you'd call it. People have made their clothes different to each other.

I'd already noticed that a lot of people are wearing undyed dresses, like Lexi and I, or skirts. A lot of people, but not everyone. A few have trousers, apparently made of the same kind of linen cloth as our shifts, but sewn together around their legs. Others have dyed their clothing different colours, mostly earthy, natural shades, like browns and greens and dull muted reds. And even the people who are wearing the plain, undyed shift-dresses have found different ways to wear them, to stand out from one another. Some have their dresses looser or more fitted, and others are wearing belts and sashes to alter the way the dresses hang. There seems to be quite a lot of variety in that, which is interesting to see, from having cloth belts right up under their chests, making a kind of empire-line waist, to belts right down on their hips, almost like a-line skirts, so the cloth hangs more swirlily as they move.

It's fascinating. It's fascinating how different all their clothes are, and how much difference they have managed to make from such simple dresses.

I keep looking, and wondering, and trying to keep track of it all.