'The Red Lady' - Writing Exercise

Today in a third-year university class titled 'Experimental Poetics', we were given a writing exercise.
We were to "envisage a contemporary situation in which one person watches another watching, watching an act or acts of conspicuous consumption".

This was my piece. I called it The Red Lady.

An explanation comes after the piece which is heavy on the detail and particulars. Only read the explanation if you're keen on having the mystery ruined.

I hope you like it:


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Thumbing through the clothing racks, I caught you, eyes wandering, down and up like a thermometer rising, across the body of those people in the building.

Though different pieces caught your eye, and you pulled them out to weave your fingers through their lace and cottons, none entranced more than the body and the face of that nearby woman in red.

She, a statuesque figure of seemingly effortless divinity, crimson skirt sequinned, elegant design, and you, an acne-scarred adolescent, pant-tears stitched by grandmothers hands, eyes moaning and glimmering blue and chasing hope and dreaming and expectation.

The Red Lady smiled and laughed at the speaker before her, one who slipped fingers between hangers on the racks, donning dresses and shirts with cuts as fine as the lashings of his tongue. One who cast words like spells and plush pillows, beckoning bodies to fall between them, seemingly entranced by his script.

And when the speaker brought out that long lace gown, off the racks you so flippantly thumbed through, with threads that weaved diamonds through your imagination, The Red Lady blushed. As only she could blush. As you might one day blush. But only in your dreams.

Because what you knew, is that this world is but an ocean, with tides ceaselessly throbbing, and you are an outcast stranded in a craft at sea.

And only red ladies gain a sail.

----

Explanation:

I based the piece off a recent experience shooting at a fashion festival.

The festival partially hinges off the selfless acts of volunteers; from dressers to ushers to interns. These people fantasise endlessly about the prospect of becoming important parts of the industry.

And standing before them, so often, are the endless parade of beautiful people. The important faces. The stream of names. The VIPs. The entrepreneurs.

A volunteer might look affectionately up towards these entrepreneurs, who gain access with a flick of the wrist and a name dropped of a successful person whom they've known for years. Thus, the lady in red, being seduced by the salesperson wiles of the speaker, said speaker and seller of garments representing conspicuous consumption.

A volunteer might aspire to be them, and work tirelessly, for hour upon hour a day, at no profit to them, in the hope they might one day make those dreams a reality. Thus, the one being watched who watches another.

But what reality dictates is that so often these entrepreneurs were often born into circumstances well-off enough to allow their goals, strives and businesses to blossom. Whether by luck, by genetic lottery, or by sheer calculated exploitation. Such is the nature of the entrepreneur, one which is becoming far too apparent. 

Like those beautiful people never had to don pants sewn back together by grandmothers hands, so too might the volunteer never don her red dress.

And the red lady gains her sail.