Burqa by the Beach

So, it’s a cliché picture-perfect warm Labor Day and here I am driving slowly along side Werri Beach, Gerringong – beautiful rural area of New South Wales. I’ve got Holiday park beach cabins to my left, surfers and beachgoers in their bathers coming and going from the beach to my right.

Approaching a speed hump, in my peripheral vision to my immediate right I see a woman – presumably, on her knees covered in a blue burqa. I bring the car to a crawl and watch in the rearview mirror the burqa crawl on her hands and knees across the road – that’s it, I’ve seen enough. Pull my car into the gutter, I get out grabbing my iPhone and approach.

The Burqa walks eerily into the front yard of a quintessential Aussie post-war fibro house. She is watched by a modest crowd that had gathered. A mix of relaxed and perplexed faces – I have stumbled into a live performance.

My performance is not about the burqa it’s about the ‘unknown soldier‘ this time a faceless woman who the war mongers and industrial military complex have no care or concern for and she rises from a shallow grave as an entity of retribution.

The Haunted Burqa
– Hellen Rose

Singers can be just as brave as soldiers. Artists are as brave as soldiers.

Hellen Rose