Un-Savvy Shopper

Jacinta Pattison 

The thrift store is cool and slightly musty when she steps inside. It’s reminiscent of a library, a hushed silence hanging over the shoppers as they mind their own business. There’s a crisp twenty burning a hole in her pocket. Like a moth to a flame, she approaches the first rack and feels up the delicious textures, while her eyes hungrily assess the item’s potential place in her already full-to-bursting wardrobe. Eventually, having drunk her fill, she admits that this piece would suit her friend much better than herself, and moves onto the next. And so she continues. 

For her, a stressed and broke student, shopping like this is a sensory experience. The radio is set to an obscure talk show station, and the elderly volunteers are nodding in agreement with the rambling bass tones. She vaguely feels nostalgia for the time when radio was as important to everyone as it is to those who grew up with nothing else. The thrift shop is filled with history and nostalgia. Items that were fleetingly trendy decades ago — gaudy print leggings, pleather pants, leopard print anything — catch her eye and she smiles quietly. 

Distracted, she fumbles with a hanger and the garment goes tumbling to the floor. Sighing, she ducks down to retrieve it, pressing into the musty smelling clothes. As she feels around, she leans too far forward and falls. 

She keeps on falling. There is nothing but the clothes around her, pushing her down. She is sinking further and further. She can’t scream; the fibers are battling to enter her mouth and wear her skin like a onesie. After what feels like an eternity, she is birthed into a strange new world. 

There is no earth beneath her. No sky above. Instead of land, stretching as far as the eye can see, and beyond, she’s trapped in a textile dome. Shadowy figures drift and sway lethargically, just out of focus. She steps forward. She needs to know what they are. Everything in this strange new land is potentially deadly. The journey to get here was certainly no picnic. She furiously itches at the fiber burn on her face and neck. 

As one of the figures comes into focus, it immediately stops swaying and stands stock-still. She can make out a full beard and askew tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. The man stares at her, mouth slack and eyes empty. Approaching him slowly, she snaps her fingers at him. And again. No response. 

His mouth opens, revealing a black and white houndstooth print bunched inside. Recoiling in horror, she slaps a hand over her own mouth. Her skin crawls and itches. Looking down, she realises, with a strangled scream, that her own clothes are inching closer to her face, scrunching and crawling like a creepy carpet of caterpillars. Screaming bloody murder, she rips her clothes off and flings them far away. Exposed and trembling, she withdraws into a fetal position. Huge eyes peek through her fingers. 

A small cluster of clothes break off from the larger group and approach her. They hum, like a human clearing their throat, and her head shoots up. 

“Do you remember us?” they rasp.

She peers at them cautiously. There’s something familiar about them, but her memory is fuzzy. 

“We’re what you abandoned when you reinvented yourself again and again,” they accuse. 

“I...” she hesitates. “Yes, I remember you. 

“The leather jacket is from my rocker phase. 

“The corset is from when I tried princess-core. 

“The leather shoes that gave me blisters are from my stint as an eco-warrior. “I remember all of you. You gave me such joy. Why are you doing this?” 

The clothes advance on her, menacingly. “You looked like you were having so much fun. We want to express our inner selves too.” 

“No, no,” she shakes her head emphatically. “That’s only for us.” 

“Why?” they hiss, “Why can you wear our lifeless bodies when we can’t wear yours?” “Just because,” she insists, backing away. “We’re alive and you aren’t.” 

“Don’t we look alive to you? Don’t we move and talk and feel?” 

She doesn’t respond, just turns and runs. To where, she doesn’t know. 

They surge after her, a multi-coloured tidal wave rushing over the ground and gaining quickly. As they envelope her, she screams until fabric fills her mouth and cuts off her airway. The wave of clothes settles into a puddle. From it rises a tiny pink onesie. It starts getting dressed, one tiny pink fleece arm at a time. Draped in the image of the un-savvy shopper, it looks at its mother and cries; “Mum, it’s way too big!” 

“Don’t worry darling,” she adjusts the drapery affectionately, “You’ll grow into it.”