Aspirational Fanfiction About Clothing I Can Not Afford
By: Sarah Maria Griff
Tags: Eyes

Aspirational Fanfiction About Clothing I Can Not Afford

(I am not ashamed of my shallow tendencies)

I’m not traditionally employed right now. By ‘not traditionally,’ I actually mean I’m kind of unemployed right now. This situation means I can’t be spending money on the temporarily stylish hipster garb which I constantly fantasize about. Not being able to buy ephemeral and stylish clothing and accessories is hard when the internet is sitting right there being absolutely full of flower crowns and studded vests and other things that I’d probably never wear even if I did have the money for them. I might never wear them, sure, but I’d still love them, relentlessly.

Addicted, I stare at the Internet at various interludes every day and eyeball clothing I can’t afford like a teenage boy drip-feeding himself pornography. And like a run of the mill lust filled adolescent, I write fanfiction about the things I can’t have, and who I would be if I had the things I want.

1.

Look, there’s this black shirt that arrived in today on Forever21.com. It’s short in the front and long in the back and sleeveless with sort of sheer fabric but listen, it’s got these sharks all over it. Wide-mouthed, starving vicious sharks all over the shirt. They are cartoon blue like the sky in the morning and their mouths are red and fleshy and their teeth are starving for something alive and they swim in the seventeen dollar blackness of the fabric, they are in deep space, they are in the unreachable blackness of the sea. I will drape myself in this seventeen dollar thing and wear this black ocean of sharks on my body and feel them gnaw and chew until a thirst for meat is all I have, until they and me are not so unlike after all. When you turn your back my skin flushes blue like theirs and my teeth grow in fresh arcs in my mouth and long slits for gills open in my throat, a sharp triangular fin blossoming from my spine. Duh-nuh. Duh-nuh. Duh-nuh — I will be hungry for the red in your body. You will need a bigger boat.

2.

Look, there’s this pair of shoes that arrived today from Modcloth.com. They’re black flats with a round toe, leather insoles, pretty straightforward but get this, they have crowns embroidered on the front. Red and gold with tiny crystals stuck on them, like Tower of London-looking crowns like right there on my feet, my monarchy feet, my queen feet. All who pass me on Valencia as I walk to the store to buy leeks or celery will gasp and fall to their knees oh, they never thought I would come out of my palace to stroll so casually amongst them and I will tell them to rise, be at ease, I am merely surveying my kingdom from the ground. Though there will always be one, one fool who casts me an eye that I find displeasing and the moment I feel his beady gaze upon me I will scream for my legions of winged woman-soldier guards, “Off, off with his head!” and from the heavens they will descend with scythes and cleanly obey my bidding. They always obey and all who do not will meet the same fate, oh how heads will roll down Valencia Street like tumbleweed, oh how you will know my wrath, San Francisco, oh how you will know my wrath.

3.

Look, there’s this woolly jumper made by The Orphan’s Arms. It’s black. No surprises there, everything I like is mostly black, but get this, it has a pattern of white rabbits knit into it with the word ‘FOLLOW’ below every rabbit. I know what you’re thinking. Like follow the white rabbit, like Alice in Wonderland right? Wrong. Wrong, there will be no talking flowers or hearts or flamingos — not today, not in this sweater as I nip by the butchers to pack up a half pound of shrimp for me lunch. The small domestic bunny from the backyard next door, eyes wide, has trailed me down the street, hopping as I take a step, poor, hypnotized, impressionable dope. I stand at the butchers counter and go, half a pound of the cooked shrimp yeah the big ones nice one and go about my business. The bunny sits outside with its neck cocked curiously to the side, waiting on me, oozing adoration. I turn me back and put me shrimp into me tote and I’m off but before I can hear the door swing behind me and the butcher (the cute skinny butcher with the mustache and tattoos) screams bloody murder. Three of the rabbits that had been strung in the window, skinned and eyeless, have wrung themselves free and stand on their hind legs on the floor behind me, as I walk they loom forward like, mother, mother, we’ll come with you wherever you go.