- Vol. 04
- Chapter 09
The Shrinking Dress
"I've made a shrinking dress," he told her. "And I'm looking for the perfect girl to wear it."
The girls, they came in all sizes, the thinner ones stayed a while longer than the larger ones. Ultimately they couldn't keep up with his demand, the shrinking dress required the girl to grow smaller each week until he could create the illusion he was looking for. And here she was, this black pony tailed girl, with a tank top across her breasts and red sneakers that looked ready for kicking. She had a fire in her eye, and he knew that she was his girl. The girl to disappear.
She told him, "I'll do it. Tell me what size you want and I'll get there."
"Small, smaller than zero." He looked her up and down hungrily.
She nodded. "I need a week, to do it."
He pulled out a tape measure and his watch.
A week later when she had dark circles under her eyes, and bones that stuck out everywhere. When he pulled out the tape measure she fit perfectly into the red dress.
"Beautiful, now go home and grow smaller," he told her.
"I'm too fat?" She said to him.
"Just smaller, each week the dress grows smaller, and we need it to fit right."
The Shrinking Dress
She rolled the alligator hat in her hands. She wanted to snap at him, pull his tape measure away, eat the donuts that were sitting on a plate beside his coffee. She wanted to tell him that it wasn't right, that it was a terrible idea, but instead she said, "I'll come back next week then."
When she returned her clothes hung loosely, her hair once shiny now brittle. He snapped her pictures in the perfectly fitted red dress. And her smile, now faded into a spark. One more week and he'd have the perfect illusion, she'd be translucent.
"Smaller, we need to go smaller," he said to her.
"Did I look pretty today?"
"Not as pretty as the other girls," he said to her.
"You want me to disappear, is that it?" She asked.
"We need to get you just to that moment before you disappear, a perfect ember, a star before it turns to dark."
"I'll return."
And he smiled, cut his tape measure in half, the rest wouldn't ever be needed.
The shadows followed her into the studio, the following week. She moved in slow motion. Her eyes hollow, her heart filled with only one spark. She put on the red dress and as he snapped a picture, for a moment the dress stood, on its own before it folded into itself. He looked in his camera and he saw her, the perfect girl, a flash, before she disappeared into the heavens.