Introduction
I want to share with you a very short piece I wrote, being a fan of science fiction, that was more for the absurdity and the unusual than anything else. Myself, I am seldom completely serious when I write, and this piece is a good display of what happens when my silly side takes over. I won't bore you with my process, this pieces was short and sweet, and to the point. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thank you.
"Killer Clothes"
“Before you
open the portal, remember, it is a different reality. The longer you spend in that reality, the
more it takes hold on you”.
There they
stood in that stereotypical basement lab of drab concrete and stainless steel
counters, an open space cleared and squared off with yellow and black tape
defining the portal area. The doctor, a
white haired man in his sixties wearing a bright red bowtie and a lab coat…his
adventurous assistant, a young woman in her thirties with shoulder length blue
hair, thick black framed glasses, and dressed in white tank top with a turquoise cardigan over it and khaki capris
and a pair of comfortable black lo-top chucks on. Rather than safety gear for the lab, they had
decided a normal appearance might not be as much of a shock.
If only she knew…
“Doc, I’ve
got this…I’ll only be there long enough to observe..”, as she spoke, holding
the handheld portal reactor, she started to dial in, using the phasing
frequency for her own reality as a base to return to…the Doc really had thought
of everything. When the portal opened,
it’s silvery vortex shining and rippling, both stood in awe for a moment before
the Doc urged her forward silently, turning, she nodded at him and then stepped
through…
…and as
soon as her feet hit the ground, the portal dissipating behind her, she could
feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up, her skin tingling beneath her
clothes in the warm air. Something in
this reality was very different, and it was fascinating!
Also scary.
Looking
around, she’d managed to step out into a mostly modern world, except that there
was an important feature missing that brought color to her cheeks. The people around her that stared at her with
awe and pity were all nude! Why though?
It didn’t make any sense. Everyone gave
her a wide berth as she walked down the street, making her way to the
sidewalk. Another thing she noted in her
mental observations was that it seemed there was no fabric. The only other clothing she saw was alone and
unbothered, oddly on mannequins set out on a street corner with chains hook to
the fabric…so odd. Why would they need
to hook chains to clothes?
Deciding it
was time to do a little extra observation to better understand this, she
stepped off the curb, looking both ways down an oddly empty street in what
appeared to be a clean version of a post-apocalypse. As she started across, the first person to
approach her at all spoke to her in a shaky, fearful voice that sent shivers up
her spine.
“If you’re
still you…take them off before they consume you!”
Running
off, the person left her standing there perplexed as she looked herself over,
touching her glasses, of which the arms kept ticking her hair, and looking over
her clothes. She didn’t
understand…consume her? Also, she knew
it was warm, but why were her feet sweating so profusely? She was starting to squelch with every
step. It was a bit much. Shrugging off the strange warning, though it
nagged at her, she had to get a closer look.
At first
inspection, it looked like nothing more than a blood red cocktail dress and a
pair of matching high heels. The other
mannequins looked more disheveled the clothes looked tattered, and
oddly…shriveled? Turning her attention
to the dress, she walked closer, touching it.
It was warm, possibly from the sun.
A loc of hair at the side of her head fell free, the arm of her glasses
tickling her ear again, brushing it away absently, not even noticing the
plastic near her ear lobe, she continued her inspection. It almost seemed the dress was moving a
little. It had to be the breeze. So she decided to bend down and look at the
shoes. Not much of a person for high
heels, they still weren’t bad…oddly, they appeared her size too…she almost
wanted to take them. Right up until the
sun glinted off of something around the edges of them.
Suddenly,
she couldn’t scramble back away from the display fast enough. It was a fluid she readily identified as
saliva, by it’s long term affect on the mannequin. Standing in the middle of the street,
suddenly everything about why these people were nude made sense…she couldn’t
wait to tell the Doc! Brushing at her
ear again to get the hair away from it, her fingers swiped plastic.
Plastic? Slowly, fearfully, her hands slid up to her
ears. Smooth plastic , the plastic arms
of her glasses, it was curled around the bottom of her ears and slowly trying
to protrude INTO HER EARS! Grabbing and
clawing at them in a panic, she started pulling and ripping frantically at the
stubborn eyewear to get it from her head as it curled around her fingers and
squirmed in it’s silent struggle. As
though coated in glue, the frames clung to the bridge of her nose, fighting
vigorously. It was at this point, that
she could feel her other clothing items betraying her.
Her shoes
weren’t wet with sweat, it was the saliva of hungry creatures trying to devour
her! Pins and needles over her legs and
torso was her shirt and pants injecting their tendrils into her bloodstream,
her underwear was trying to attack her nether regions, and her bra was
attempting to milk her somehow. It was
all so surreal! But it was happening,
and happening now as with a final painful tug she ripped the glasses from her
face as they tried to wrap around her
wrists like a pair of intertwined snakes, she immediately let go shaking her
hands violently to be rid of them dancing back, her steps suddenly awkward as
she realized she was covered in living and hungry organisms that had once been
her clothes. The remote forgotten in
frenzy as she had shoved it in a pocket, she frantically ripped the cardigan
off, which felt like it had been part of her skin as she removed it, dropping
it to the ground, the remote skittering out of it.
It was the
bra and underwear she needed off so badly with their intimate advances. Looking around as she struggled out of her
tank top, hands shaking with fearful hurry, the nude people around her gathered
to watch. Peeling the tank top from her
skin was like tearing away metal siding from a hangar bay. As she struggled with the shirt, suddenly the
sensation of something wrapping around her ankles made her pause, looking down
just in time to see the laces of her chucks extended to wrap around her legs,
yanking her feet together with such force that she was left tottering for long
agonizing seconds, bending forward, then arching backwards as she teetered on
the balls of her feet before crashing onto her back in the street.
Woozy and
still struggling with the shirt, terror racing through her like fire in her
veins, it’s icy touch on her spine making her shudder, unable to get the shit
off fast enough, but when she did, as it writhed in her grip, she flung it
away, the crowd flowing away from it, and as she started on her pants, she
looked down.
“HOLY
SHIT!”, in horror, her eyes as wide as they could go, she saw her shoes
transform into a growing, gaping canvas maw as they coalesced into one large
living blob that was intent on swallowing her whole, not unlike a python
would. For a few long moments, she
didn’t move. Then panic gave way to the
need to survive as she kicked furiously, bending forward to use her hands too
to peel the large mass off of her ankles, and it was like having a sack that
had been soaked shellac wrapped around her feet. Writhing and growling, she felt it clamp down
on her toes firmly as she started to get it off of her. Without thinking, she balled up a fist and
hammered it a few times.
That did
the trick, suddenly it just fell away, the insoles hanging out of the black
canvas mass like a pair of tongues in a cartoonish fashion. Scrabbling away from it before it woke up, and
tearing her pants away, she started peeling them away down her legs as she
tried to rid herself of them. That final
kick as she struggled out of her khakis and she was dancing for a different
reason, as her bra and panties were attacking her ways that made her cheeks
color more deeply, peeling the bra off was the easy part. It was the panties that made her pause before
pushing them down to hop out of them with a sharp, “Hey!”, as they made one
last attack at her.
Stumbling
backwards awkwardly onto the sidewalk, her skin red where she’d worn clothing,
and having to squint so she could see clearly, she panted, looking around
bewildered. Suddenly she remembered the
remote and started looking around, seeing it where she had dropped the
cardigan, and picking it up whilst trying to somehow cover herself.
Remote in
hand, her right arm was across her chest, her feet and knees turned inwards as
her other hands tried to cover herself below.
It was completely awkward, and at some point after she looked around,
she gave up…she had more curves than most of the women…it made sense now. Canting her head and jutting her jaw forward,
she clicked the button to charge the portal back to her reality with all of the
casualness of changing the channel on the tv.
When the
assistant did walk through back into the lab nude, the portal allowed to
dissipate behind her, all she did was set the remote on the table, holding up a
hand forcefully to cut the doctor off as she stared straight ahead.
“I’ll write
it all down later….”, as he nodded, she let her hand drop and her shoulders
slump forward, “I am going to get a cup of coffee and just…be nude for a
while…”
As she
walked off in a huff and slapping bare feet, the Doc just stood there in
stunned silence…only to stare at the remote.
