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SUBMISSION ENTRY: "Behind Wardrobe Doors"
USERNAME: ~BestDressedMeow~
CHARACTERS INVOLVED: Professor Red, Arel
BRIEF SUMMARY OF FEARFICTION: "Often overlooked and never listened to. A series of drabbles about clothing."
ENTRY HERE:

1. Red's Cloak

I came into this world at the hands of someone's felting needle. I don't remember their exact touch, just the constant p***k p***k p***k sensation of being gently woven into place. I had sprung forth from wool. I was advertised as warm and durable. I was in one piece. I was the color red.

So was she, when I met her. I thought nothing of it when she put me on for the first time, her hair just several shades of copper too dark to blend in perfectly with me, her eyes shadowed beneath me. But then, I thought nothing at all back then -- I was just a cloak for sale at a store.

The first time I shredded was the first time that I realized that I could think -- that I was. I began to relish those dark nights and full moons. I don't feel pain, but I was close to it, caught between her transformed claws, the twigs of naked trees pulling against me.

And as I frayed, so did her mental state. I came to realize that there were times I was more aware of myself than she was.

I am red, never capitalized. I am the monster, but not the one made of flesh.

2. Arel's Scarf

When I was parted with scissors from a sheet of polyester much bigger than me, I was excited to go. I was stitched together with a glittery, stretchy cotton, and proclaimed to be almost ten feet long, their longest scarf yet and knew that I was destined for a great wearer.

And yet when my wearer comes to the wardrobe doors every morning, it is with great annoyance that he adorns his body with us. He is unhappy with his height, and so he slumps into us and expects us to mask it.

It is not our fault. We try our best. Every evening, the boots stashed underneath me put themselves through their nightly rigorous ritual of stretches, straining against their own stitches that they might give our wearer some added height. The coat carefully fluffs itself out, attempting to capture as much air between each strand of fur as it can. The sheer volume of its efforts would add a whole inch to our wearer's stature, would he put it on more carefully and not flatten it out between the chair he sits in and the force of his own weight. I am mindful, too, of his own desires, but I cannot change the simple fact that I was made for a certain larger size of person who could pull off a ten-foot scarf. I tuck myself in around his neck and try to hold my threads together as tightly as I can, that I might compress better and seem more proportional to his tiny body.

I used to hope that he would melt and stay melted, and that I would be given to somebody who appreciated me -- maybe the cute yule cat who commented on my perfectly even fringe, or another school officer who said he liked my colors -- but we are given to people to wear for a reason. I was made with patient, even stitching, and durable fabric, the kind that is able to withstand being wadded up and thrown into a wardrobe.

My favorite moments are the quiet ones right after he is exposed to high temperatures and melts. It is almost as if his very being seeps into us. He is unappreciative, and cranky, and doesn't know anything about dressing for his size -- but he is vulnerable in a way that I know no other wearer could be.

We hold him together. And it is knowing this that keeps the boots stretching, and the coat fluffing, and myself folding and shrinking.

USERNAME: AllHelBrokeLoose
REVIEW HERE: Very interesting! ANOTHER! One more would have been most delightful!

USERNAME: flappybird333
REVIEW HERE: Oh, I never thought about clothes that way! o A o I'll make sure to take very good care of them!!