Sally, the Living Dress

 

The way that Sally came to life was very unusual.

Zhing Zao Pong had been a role model employee for twenty-four years at Jan Wong Sweatshop Factory. A humble and servile, extremely profitable worker in the women’s section of the factory, based in outer Chow Mei district, Beijing. Her awareness of her gnarled spindly fingers around the jabbing electric needle was so precise, the habit of stitching and sowing so ingrained in her brain, that she could make a whole dress without even opening her eyes. It was with good reason that the floor manager used to parade the inspectors and government officers straight to her when they came to visit, and would say, with a hint of pride, “Look at this woman! I work her hard. Look at jumpers she makes. Yes. Nice!”

And the ice-cold, reptilian-like eyes of the government officials and inspectors would just stare at her, unblinking, like she was just an adequate piece of performing machinery. Then they would simply turn and walk away without looking at anyone else at all.

 

And so, when after her one-thousand-seven-hundred-and-eighty-second seventeen-hour shift was finished, and Zhing Zao had caught sight of the white-spotted red piece of fabric someone had accidently dropped in the discard pile, she glanced around quickly- and in milliseconds it was stuffed up the inside of her jumper. She had not even hesitated. In the twenty-four years since she had been pulled out of her school by the state, and placed in the factory, she had never seen anything like it be thrown away. Her reaction was instinctive. Animalistic. Keen opportunism passed on to her from generations of her cowed and enslaved bloodline.

So it wasn’t until she had left the workshop and was walking out into the smog, and had slipped on her gas mask to cover her throat from the thick grey reeking air, that she had realised the severity of what she had done.

She had panicked at first. Her eyes had blazed with shock, her pupils had darted around wildly, and she went shooting down into a Raskolnikov state of guilt and worry. But she had managed to calm herself with her breathing. And by the time she got home she was fine. She heated up a lone bowl of soup for her dinner, and retired to her bedroom desk, where her own small sowing machine was placed upon. She spread the stolen material out, caressed it in her hands, and even smiled minutely at it for two point four seconds. And then she went to work.

 

The material seemed a perfect fit for her. It would make the perfect dress. Her sexy neighbour, Mr Dee Jay Dong, would definitely want to bang her in this.

She smiled to herself as she pictured him looking at her. It had been ten years since her husband and son had both jumped from the tenth and twelfth floors of the factory warehouse, on different days of the same week, falling right through the clutches of the suicide prevention net. And she still missed her husband’s touch. Just the touch of a man in general. She pictured Mr Dee Jay’s big peeking duck, and imagined the taste of his sweet and sour pork, and as she smiled, a strange warm sensation came to her body and mind.

 

For four long months she worked on the fabric. She came home to it from the factory every single day. Her eyes glassing over as she manoeuvred the fabric around the needle.  The pup pup pup of her machine sounded so much more pleasant, and so much less evilly enforcing than the whir! and bang! at the factory, that she was able to sink into a small vat of comfort that she had found had existed in her mind; where her thoughts went to sleep and her subconscious took over, powering her arms like they were puppets.

 

By the third month, she realised she was actually falling in love with her dress; that she was cherishing it and pouring love into it, just like she had her husband and son. After every hour-long session, she would halt the needle and stand up and try the dress on. She checked herself out in the mirror; throwing poses, and sticking her bottom out and smacking it with her hand and saying “Oh! Mr Dee Jay!”

And this became her regular routine. Wake. Eat rice. Go to work. Work. Come home. Eat dinner. Make her dress. Then go to sleep in the left side of the double bed. Repeat it all the next day. And the day after that.

As she got closer to finishing, she noticed something happening to her. Her normal, vacant, worker-bee-like mind was becoming less and less a part of her. She found herself feeling things- energy, inspiration, ideas! And she became more and more absorbed by this special thing she had created. For the first time ever, this thing was hers. She would see the results and feelings of what she had made, on her very own body. And these feelings grew into pride and excitement- feelings extremely rare over the span of her life- and as such, she grew even more attached to the dress.

She poured love into every single part of it, into every thread and every frill. She designed gentle layered patterns and aligned their seams until she was almost satisfied. Until it was fitting her as comfortably, yet as sensually, as she could ever have imagined was possible. She got more and more excited with it. It became her- her own loved thing, her own creation, almost like to her what her son had been.

Often, she went a whole day without even speaking to anyone, just went to work and ploughed on at the machine with disinterest. Then she would come home alone and go upstairs, and her eyes would flash to life. She adored the dress. She didn’t feel lonely when she was with it. Yet she could not wait until it was finished so she could finally put it on.

 

Alas, so it goes, that Zhing Zao was only a few days away from finishing- she was just putting in the final stitches- when she was struck down by an aneurysm. She collapsed at her table. Her face in her dress. Her body flopping about furiously. And then she was dead.

 

But the way it happened was very unusual.

 

Zhing Zao had felt the onslaught of the brain tremors. She had felt a sudden panic at cold hard death. But then she couldn’t remember much else. Not until she was out of her body, and looking down over it from above, did she remember anything more. She had the sensation that she was light and formless. That she was floating. And she stared down with interest at the strange human face- this mask that she had worn- that was mashed into her beautiful dress. Her body too, looked bizarre and alien to her. So decrepit and horrible and appalling; lying down across her long wooden desk, and the unmade bed at the side of it.  

Many others would simply take one more passing glance, then say goodbye to what they had been before, and rise, rise, out through the ceiling and be gone. But not Zhing Zao. It is true she did not give a damn about that body. Or that miserable face. She did not give a damn about the stupid table or the stupid bed or even the house or any of those other things that would soon turn to rubble and dust. But she could not leave the dress.

 

And so, with great resistance against the invisible force pulling her upwards, she pushed down, down, until she was inches above the table, and she swept herself down further, into her dress.

Suddenly she felt a little more heavy. Not near as heavy as her former body had, but still just a little. She also felt the fabric more than she ever could before- the softness of it, the airy spaces between the delicate threads and fibres. Now more than ever she was at one with her creation.

Zhing Zao lay like this for several days. And nothing happened. But then she heard a BANG. And a THUD. THUD. THUD getting louder. Someone was climbing the stairs. They came into the room. It was her old floor manager, Mr Chan, and a colleague of hers from the factory floor. They looked at her old dead body, with much disinterest and no change of expression. But all at once Mr Chan spotted the dress, and his eyes bulged at the sockets and he shouted in an incandescent rage.

He pointed. The shop floor colleague- a middle-aged timid lady with a ponytail- looked at the dress but said nothing. Then she lifted up Zhao Zing’s old head and picked up the dress.

Zhing Zao felt herself lift into the air. Then fold, and fold, and fold again. She was being carried and she knew not where, but she presumed back to the factory.

 

Next thing she knew she was thrown into a box and other dresses were piled up on top of her. And then the flaps above closed over, and the world fell dark.

She tried to talk to the other clothes. Tried to communicate her thoughts. But it seemed to her they were all dead. Only she was alive.

One thing she did have, was an awareness of death. She could have gone to it before. But had chosen not to. And because she knew that she existed; even without needing a physical body or object, she didn’t much care about time. So, the long hours in the box passed easily. The time shaking from side to side passed quickly. And the sounds all around her came and went. And then she heard something like a foghorn signal, and cars and machine engines. And a tiny chink of light poked in through the top of the box, and she knew she was again being carried somewhere.

 

She heard a voice on top of her. A gruff, man’s voice, speaking in a strange tongue. Then she heard doors close and more engines. Then she knew she was being picked up again. This time there were what sounded like hundreds of voices. Was she back in a factory?

But no. Some time later, the light reappeared, then two female hands lifted her out. She was placed down on a floor and all around her were scattered thousands, maybe millions of other clothing items. Skirts, ties, shirts. Dresses, trousers, boxer shorts. And then a young woman picked her, and the next thing she knew she was hanging on a clothing rack on a row with other random dresses. In front of her was pink. Behind her the dress was blue. And over to her left she could see all the other clothes, that were not so unique. Clothes just like the ones she had made in her old former life. It was surreal for her just to be there. All that she and her colleagues had worked so hard for, so this is where they ended up! Dozens of the exact same dresses and skirts. Rows and rows of the same colours, patterns, stitchings. An aisle of black skirts here. An aisle of blue jumpers there. Clothes she knew would only last two months before they would fall to pieces.

 

And then there were women, white, western women, and men, skittering around the store, picking up those clothes, putting them back, trying them on, holding them up against their bodies. So these were the people she had worked her ass off for.

And then she herself, felt a hand.

“Oh! This is cute!” The young woman said, gaping at her.

Her friend of the same age- about twenty- popped her bubble-gum in her mouth and replied, “What brand is it?”

“I dunno. Whatsit say?” The girl rummaged with her free hand, “It’s all just different stuff. Ah, wait here. Sally.”

“Sally?” Her friend’s face squished up. You would have seen her eyebrows narrow too, but they had been shaved off and replaced with drawings of worms. “What kinda make is Sally?” she drawled.

“Well, it’s what the dress behind it says. But this one is different. I really like it. Isn’t it cute? I think it’s cute. No?”

The friend rolled her eyes and said nothing.

“Well, I’m gonna get it.”

“Yer not gonna be getting nuthin in a brand named Sally.” Her friend quipped, as Zhing Zao was thrown into the basket.

She spent the rest of the day in a shopping bag, with other clothes squashed tight against her. The girls went round more and more stores and more and more clothes were dumped on top of her.

 

Everything went black. And then she was in a strange room, lying on top of a table. The girl who had bought her stood before the mirror trying out different outfits, while her friend chewed her bubble-gum, sitting on the bed.

“That one’s alright, Julia.” The friend offered.

Julia twisted and turned and looked at her reflection from different angles. “Think so?”

The friend rolled her eyes and tutted. “I said so, didn’t I?” She picked up a Hello magazine from the floor and started leafing through it, then her eyes blinked in the memory of something, and she put it back down. “D’ya know what happened two days ago? I was on Insta, and I posted a picture of me in my bra and pants. And Dean commented on it and was like, no tits!  And I was like, Oh My God! Who d’ya think yer talkin to?!”

Julia adjusted her long black ponytail and bent and looked at her ass. “Dean Johnson?” she feigned interest, “But you do have tits, Kara. You do.”

“I know. No tits. Me! No tits.” Kara turned her head down and cupped her left breast in her hand. Then her philosophical look- which was extremely amusing with her lack of any eyebrows- vanished, and she again picked up the magazine.

Zhing Zao waited eagerly. The dresses Julia were trying on were nice, but she knew she was the most beautiful. She could not wait to actually be worn by someone. To see her creation fulfilled. To make some sort of statement with it. Julia was a handsome girl too- flowing raven hair, burning brown eyes, gorgeous skin, and facial structure and lips to die for. Her frame was slender like Zhing Zao’s old body had been, and she seemed to be an almost identical size. She could not have wished for a better wearer.

“Niall Horan is so hot.” Kara mused at the magazine.

“Hm. I prefer Zayne.” Julia philosophized. She unzipped the back of her dress- a yellow one with flowers on it- and wriggled out of it, then she reached down and picked up the red dress with the white dots, and held it above her head.

She slowly pulled it down.

 

“Oh my.. God.” Julia stared awe-struck at the girl in the mirror. Elegant. Refined. Sophisticated. Yet sensual, fun and free. The dress fully emphasized the curve of each beautiful body part. It stretched down tight over the perky bum. It was stitched up in such a way that it lifted the cleavage, and somehow made the boobs look even bigger. The frills on the bottom gave the impression the legs were longer, thinner and somehow floating. And the frills on the hips created a snake like impression, sort of like Shakira’s, she thought. The white dots said to her- modesty. The red screamed- passion. She looked so good in it, for a second she thought she might cry.

“Oh! Wow, girl!” Kara said, without a hint of sarcasm. She slowly lowered the magazine, with a somewhat surprised expression, “You were right. You look…like a..I dunno. Beautiful.”

Julia flashed a bright smile, showing her perfectly white and straight teeth. And she couldn’t stop smiling, especially in acknowledgement of this rare praise from her friend. Zhing Zao too, took in the reflection, but she already knew that everything was perfect. She had turned this girl into something otherworldy. A beauty beyond all beauties. She didn’t as much think these thoughts as have a strong impression of them pour into her.

Julia spun and twirled and threw back her hair, and laughed, and smiled demurely, and in every angle she thought she looked like a solid ten. She had no idea that a dress could be so powerful. And she could not wait to wear it out on the town.

 

And she did not have to wait long, for that night was a Saturday night.

Julia and Kara hit the town, but first did themselves up at the house. Kara just about squeezed into a tight black dress, and Julia carefully put on hers. Julia drew eyeliner, mascara, blushed her cheeks a slight red that matched with the dress, then a touch of pink-red lipstick and a bit of foundation, and she was ready. She looked at herself a long while in the mirror. It was the dress that seemed to spark everything. She was glowing and she knew it. She looked like a princess and a rockstar too.

Zhing Zao felt the bottom of herself billowing freely in the wind as Julia stepped along the road and got onto the 27 bus. All the eyes were on her- the men’s and women’s and even the children’s- and not just on Julia’s face, but roaming down over her body, and lingering up and down such a fantastic dress with the luscious red and purity white. Zhing Zao felt waves of intense pride. The effect she had created on these people, the thing she had turned Julia into, she almost felt like some kind of God.

The bus stopped and the girls walked gracefully, in their small heels, into the club. They didn’t even have to pay. The doorman let them right on through with a long tempestuous look.

Julia had noticed. And it did not stop there. As soon as the girls had finished their drinks and were out on the dancefloor, every pair of eyes seemed glued to her. Girls looked, glanced away, then looked again. Guys goggle eyes popped out of their heads, and they tried their hardest to pull themselves away. A pop tune came on and Julia started dancing. The bottom of the dress flowed like angelic wings as she cast a mesmerising spell. Intoxicated men moved closer and tried to dance next to her. The frills on her hips snaked and swung. Her upper body moved gracefully through the air. Julia felt ecstatic, and Zhing Zao did too- in fact she was as happy as she had ever been.

 

The girls stopped dancing to go for a drink. An Italian-looking man with curly brown hair reached first, and the other men held back resentfully, and tried to pretend that they weren’t watching.

Julia smiled politely at the Italian. She told him that she had a boyfriend, and turned back to Kara. And then the men followed after, one by one- with chat up lines, jokes, openers, and doing everything they could to draw her attention. She felt high from it all, but tried to act like the rush wasn’t going to her head.

And then a woman in her mid-twenties with blonde cropped hair went up to order a beer, glanced her side-on, and turned her green eyes- already a little glassy but gleaming at the same time-, on her, “I just love your dress,” She smiled, “Is that a Versace?”

Julia laughed and shook her head.

“No?” The blonde girl said. “Who then? It looks so expensive and classy and..erotic.” Her smile beamed. Her eyes glinted with a hint of playfulness.

Julia looked back at her, and didn’t really want to say. But the green eyes would not budge. “It’s Sally.” She relented.

The blonde leaned closer, her beer in her right hand, her ear inches from Julia’s mouth, “What was that?” the blonde giggled.

Julia got a strong whiff of Burberry. She took a step back. “Sally.” She said. “The dress maker is called Sally.”

Zhing Zao kept on hearing this Sally being mentioned, and she knew that it referred to her. A new name, she thought delightedly. A new identity. Gone was the old decrepit slave machine worker of Zhing Zao Pong. Now she was just Sally- the great creator of beautiful dresses. So be it. She was more than happy for it, and for all of this great appreciation of her work.

“Sally?! Is it, like, vintage?”

“Um. I guess so?” Julia scratched her head.

“Never heard of them. Where did ya get it?”

“Oh, well.. I picked it up in the sales.” Julia looked down at her shoes, then around the bar periphery, spotting a few furtive pairs of eyes staring at her.

“Oh, c’mon!” The blonde bounced a little on her heels. “I really love it.” She encouraged.

“Well, you’ll never guess. But it was Primark.”

“Primark! That’s a Primark dress?” The blonde girl’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah.”

“But- how much was it?”

“Um, I think it was nine pound.”

“Nine pound!”

“Well. Eight, ninety-

“No! It looks so expensive.” The blonde picked up her drink and took a big swig then ran her eyes even more slowly over Julia. “Well,” she faltered, “you look electric in it anyway.”

“Thank you.” Julia grinned, and finally turned to respond to Kara’s tugging of her arm.

 

Over the next weeks and months, Julia wore that dress as often as she could. She was extremely popular. She had never felt so confident. Never felt so many eyes on her in jealousy or lust or infatuation. The compliments continued to flow on her and her dress. And Zhing Zao Sally saw all the gazes. And heard the tones of the strange words. And felt very warm and content with it all.

Over the next few months Julia was rattled by all sorts of guys. Sometimes, when she was about to take of her dress, some of the men even asked her to keep it on. Sally felt the hands all over her. Sometimes she imagined these men Julia took were her husband or Mr Dee Jay Dong. She was strongly aware of the impression she was giving, and Julia too, seemed to be lapping it all up.

 

But over time, Julia’s mind began to change. When she wore Sally she still felt like a knockout, but after a year or so it was becoming all too samey. She felt she had to mix things up. That it couldn’t look right to be seen in the same dress all the time. She began to wear it less and less. And soon Sally was resigned to the black emptiness of the wardrobe.

 

And just as Sally was aware that Julia was growing tired of her, so she too, was tiring a little of the praise and recognition. She had gotten what she wanted. Recognition. Respect for her work. She had felt good and alive and free. But she missed her loved ones. Missed her husband and her son. And felt the time had come to move on.

 

 

And on the 5th of November, she got what she wanted. She was hanging out on the washing line, when a strong wind started to gather. She begged for it to take her, and the wind seemed to be listening, gathering strength. And then she was up, and dragged away. Past fleeting clouds and flying bags. She remembered her son at school when he was five years old. She remembered her husband’s shy smile the first time he gave her flowers. She remembered the pounding of the sewing machine at Jan Wong. And Mr Chan’s dumb angry eyes. The noise and sweat and toil of the workers around her. The pittance of a pay. The days that merged into nights and became one long grind.  She remembered,- she saw a bright white light open up in the sky, and then she was gone.

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