“Look at them, don’t they look like a movie poster or something?”

I hadn’t noticed.

The former warehouse windows framed three women standing street-side with cigarettes and half full glasses of deep burgundy wine, their hijab’s and shayla’s  loosened slightly, for they hadn’t considered the change in the night air when dressing earlier in the evening; now less cool than it was a week ago. The soft glow of dim lights and candles radiates through the panes of glass, exposing to onlookers the pools of rose upon their cheeks.

“Is it safe?” They had asked.

Is it safe? 

The restaurant clientele are good-natured, wine-drinking and morning-loving. They are non-intrusive, non-invasive and conduct their affairs in a politely private fashion, so that they may disappear to the ordinary passer-by in a sea of goings-on. 

Are the streets busy with people at this time of night?

There is a small nightclub a few doors down, a temporary pop-up that’s concealed from the street and attracts sporadic floods of excited 18-year-olds and even more excited 17-year-olds.

What kind of people are on the streets but for kids?

There’s the man who sleeps by the park and the hunchback who wanders by on occasion, pushing a grocery cart filled with bags of miscellaneous goods. There’s the young family who live around the corner, the woman who walks four Dalmatians exclusively at night and the fine-browed mothers from homes in wealthy suburbs in their rare venture out of the comfort of the wealthy suburbs closer by to them.

It is late. The streets are near empty.

Empty, but for these three ladies. They are rendered in the style of the Baroque artists in the lighting of the streets at night. Their features are cast into shapes by the shadows which fall upon them from above. Suspended splashes of red, green and blue fabric hallmark their figure, distinguish their form for the observer. A neon light across the other side of the street flickers momentarily. Its loud message, ‘Asian grocer’ is silenced and the shapes of three women melt into the shadows of the street behind them.