The Hidden Girl

She walks. She shuffles. She moves.

You wouldn’t think to look there, you wouldn’t think to care, to take a glance. But there she is – down that dark alleyway. Rain pelts down hard to the ground tonight and you’d think twice before leaving your parked car. Iron and steel ooze into your nostrils as the wet ground releases it odours. Yet she walks, freely, down that dark alleyway.
Her skin is white as ash, freezing as the raindrops fall down her chest; edging past the goose pimples that cover her throbbing heart. She cannot be more that twelve years of age, yet she shuffles along like she has live for years – ages.
The thin rag of linen that she calls her nightdress is sodden with the night’s showers – torn, dirty and black with use and old age. You cannot see her feet, they are consumed by the mass of fabric over her; or that may just be in comparison to her size. Tiny little thing she is. In full view now, she moves continuously, slowly towards you; her fingers twitching away the droplets as she breathes out cold, hard air into her surroundings. Completely alone, entirely insignificant and she rules the whole of your attention.
Everything on her is basic – nothing more than rags, cuts, bruises – all that is expected of a street child. Her hair droops down next to her head; dripping with rain and laden with knots ties.
Her head...

Her head.

That’s all there is. She bears no face; no eyes, no mouth, no nose. Nothing.

She is hidden.
Why is she without a face? How can she exist without a face? Without a voice? Yet she is moving, living and breathing. And then you understand, you realise that, whether she has always been without a face or not, she has no need for one. She pauses, if only for a moment, having taken all she needs of your time; before carrying on past you again.

And so she goes on – walking, shuffling, moving.