The girl sitting next to me on the train took one look at my burqa and dark eyes and ordered, "Go back to where ya came from, you filthy Arab!"
"Why don't you want me here?" I asked.
"We just don't!"
"Why don't you want me here?"
"I just don't!"
"Is it because I gave everything I had to a people smuggler to get in a boat so I could escape my home? Is it because I killed my unborn children so they wouldn't have to suffer what I suffered? Wait! I know! It's because I am learning how to live like a free woman while you've been here your whole life! Is that it?"
The girl stared at me in stunned silence. She paled. "I am so, so sorry..."
The train stopped. Seeing that it was her station, the girl got up. "I have to go..."
YOU ARE READING
A Strange Encounter
Ficción GeneralTwo paths cross onto a train. One belongs to a Muslim woman. The other to an Australian teenage girl. (A simple dialogue. Note: I am not a Muslim. I am, however, a very empathetic young woman, and this is an imagining of what is may be like in a...
