RIDDLE OF THE CHAPTER: What has feet and legs, and nothing else?
The women trickle in after Hanzala leaves and soon there's women all over the room. They're laughing and smiling and all seem really happy. If there's anything I've learnt thus far though, it's that NOTHING is ever as it seems. I notice there's blocked off cubicles on the far end of the room and quite a few women walk over there, I'm guessing it's showers. There's a few more shower looking things just out on the wall and I see the women walk over there, untie their hair and open the taps. A pinkish powder falls out and seems to merge with their hair once it falls on it. I only notice now how the women who haven't yet "washed" look sort of crestfallen, their cheeks are a bit hollow and they don't look as upright and curvy as a women normally would. You can't see it all that well, I'm sure the men didn't even notice, but coming from a fellow women, you notice these things. As soon as they have "washed" though, you can see the difference. Their faces are fuller, brighter, prettier. Their curves are more well-proportioned and they look chock-full of vitamins.
I look in the mirror on the right side of the room and I see that I'm not all that good-looking either right now. I don't know what Hanzala was seeing earlier on. I look like a mess, my clothes are still quite rumpled and messy from Googlu and my scarf's completely wonky. I feel like I haven't bathed in 3 days and I got the smell to prove it (Ok, that's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean). I'm standing in the middle of the bustle not really sure where I'm supposed to be going to wash off when a young-looking Chinese lady walks up behind me.
"Hey," she says, towel in her hand, drying off her hair. "Looking for the showers?" she motions to my clothing.
I laugh. "Is that obvious?" I ask feigning despondency.
"I'm afraid so,we're gonna have to get you shower 3."
"What's shower.." I don't get to finish because she takes my hand and pulls me to the other side of the room that I haven't looked at yet. She walks up to the third shower, knocks on the glass door and seeing there's no one inside, she pushes me in and tells me she'll get me a towel. I don't protest, even if I wanted to, words were lost as I saw shower 3.
Beautiful.
If you can use that word to describe a shower. The tiles on the wall were pristine white porcelain and the shower head was bigger than any other I'd seen in my life. I realized why she suggested shower 3 as soon as I took my eyes off the huge shower head. The side walls were lined with shelves full of shampoos, soaps, conditioners, toothbrushes, toothpastes, loofahs and scrubbers. I don't know if all the showers are as well stocked as this one, but if they are, I'm seriously wondering what kind of place I've landed in. I don't think I've ever seen that many shampoo flavours in my life.
I hear a rapping on the door and the sweet lady passes me a towel. "You're supposed to open the tap, you know," she says laughing. "If you're that mesmerized, wait until you actually open the water."
I can't argue with that and stepping out of my filthy clothes, I open the tap.
I don't know where I've landed, but I don't ever want to leave.
I walk out what seems like an hour and 13 shampoo and soap flavours later. I don't yet know how I look, but I definitely feel beautiful. The Chinese lady is still there, but she's got someone else with her, a middle-age African woman. They're sitting and laughing at something as the African lady combs out her beautiful, curly hair.
"How was it?" the sweet, young-looking Chinese lady asks.
"If I look as good as I feel then I must be looking like the mot beautiful woman in the world", I say giving a twirl. I decide I must stop calling her the sweet, young-looking Chinese lady and say,"By the way, I didn't get your name."
"It's Kim, and this is my friend Thandeka," she motions to the lady sitting nest to her who looks up and smiles.
"It's really nice to meet you both. Thanks, for helping me out."
"It's no problem, and you do look the way you feel." Blushies.
I'm about to step out of the towel when I realize that I have no clothes with me, I start to panic and I walk back to shower 3 looking for the clothes I just dropped. But, they're not there, I'm 100% sure I dropped them on the shower floor but they've vanished. If I did find them, they would have been too soaked and dirty to wear but I would've at least had clothes.
I must be looking really panicked because Kim comes over and asks me what's wrong.
"My clothes! I.. I can't find them!"
She looks at me like I'm so odd, then opens the shower door.
"They fell down the laundry chute," she says closing the door, "the same place all dirty clothes go. You'll get it back tomorrow when it's washed."
"What am I supposed to wear?!?"
She bursts out laughing. "Wow, you're really new here, huh? Wait, omigosh, are you the chick the found at Googlu?"
"Umm, yea." I shift nervously, it's only partly because I'm still standing in nothing but a towel.
"Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I thought you were with the hiking group. They usually come back completely confused and filthy."
"Gee, thanks."
"I'm sorry, um, your new clothes should be right over there."
She points to a set of boxes in the wall, I walk towards the one that says Q243 and take out a clean long sleeve white night-dress and a bunch of other stuff. It even comes complete with a cute small burqa! I change quickly in one of the cubicles on the other side of the room that I didn't see yet and dry my hair off with the towel. When I am finally fully clothed and cleaned I walk back to Kim who takes me to get my daily dose of oestrogen. Apparently all you need to do is put your head under one of the pink powder showers and all the good stuff will travel all over your body. I do just that and I feel even better than when I had my shower, if that's even possible.
Up until now, I have been very disorientated so I don't whether to feel guilty or relieved when I spot Yasmin across the room, surrounded by a group of ladies. They seem completely oblivious to anybody around them. I turn to Kim and ask her if she wants to go say Hey to Yasmin with me. She scrunches up her nose like it's the worst suggestion in the world and tells me she's sorry but she doesn't associate with The Rosettas.
The... what now?
ANSWER: Stockings!
