POLLUTING

She grew up in a mannequin factory located some forty miles away from the nearest town. It was a family business, and she had remembered most of her childhood days running down the aisles of the assembly lines, watching the mannequins slowly shape station after station. She saw how heads snapped onto bodies like perfectly fitted lids, and how each mannequin seemed to become an individual although their muscles mimicked each other in every way, and their heads were all positioned at a five degree tilt to the left. She thinks back to those childhood memories, happy and unornamented, when she would stroll through the uniform rows of these natural, bare bodies trying to observe a minute difference amongst them. The flamboyance of the store mannequins disgusted her- she disliked their made up faces, exaggerated postures and fancy gowns; they remind her of what she has become. 

She had started a new life in town some seven years ago after leaving the mannequin house, determined to become an independent and successful woman. She wore an ironed white blouse and a pencil skirt to work at the bank everyday, where people would greet her as manager and bow at the departure of her clicking heels. She buried her face behind mountains of paperwork everyday, making emergency phone calls and tossing her beautiful brown hair or thrusting a sweet smile when necessary. People rumored ugly things behind her back in the office, but she was a well-rounded hard worker. She knew where she wanted to go and how she would go about doing them. Sometimes she would look up from the massive paper walls and stare at the pale room, contemplating her being and status. She would then walk out to the restroom and re-apply her make-up, pinch her red lips together and bounce her hair - there was a meeting due at 2pm.

It's true that she had slept with the CEO of the bank, an elderly, married man with two children and wrinkles imprinted on his face like milestones of his achievement. No one suspects this for he was a respectable, serious man who would not even take a second glance at her as they pass each other by in the hallway. She by no means had the intention of climbing her way up through this cheap method. He had called her up one night for a meeting to discuss the company's annual reports and was due at her place dressed up in a black suit and silver tie. They discussed the report, her progression, and many other things that night. The wind outside blew the curtains in his children's room, and their mother closed the window. 

She felt solitude the greatest when she turned the doorknob each night, felt time the longest as she waited for the water to boil on the stove, and the most empty as she tucked herself to sleep under her pink floral sheets. Her family still ran the mannequin business; she thought about the mannequin's still faces often before she fell asleep. 

It was two am and she had woken from a bad dream with tears half dried on her cheeks. The CEO was not here tonight, probably at home curled up against his worn wife whose hair cut short after the birth of their children. She sat up and slipped into a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. She drove some forty miles away to the mannequin factory, the moonlight shining her way on the empty road. The main entrance door was much smaller than she had remembered as she punched in the code. The door jarred open and in the dark, infinite rows of identical mannequins streamed down the factory facing her, pupil-less with a quarter way smile. She could finally look at them at eye-level now, as she strolled down the aisles feeling the familiarity enlightening her once more. She landed her eyes on the last mannequin who laid on the floor and noticed that it was a flawed product. The mannequin was missing one leg and was scattered on the ground helplessly. She helped it up by holding its armpits, parading out past all the other perfected figures and put it in the backseat of her car. 

That night, the defected mannequin laid naked by her side. The next morning, she had woken up at seven, made herself a cup of coffee and headed straight to work. The mannequin lay stationary in bed until she returned home again.