Fashionable War

The boy fell asleep wearing his blue jeans.

But the jeans had other plans. Any other night, after the boy started dreaming, the jeans would stand and summon the rest of the leg-based clothes for battle against the Torso Huggers. Tearing the boy out of bed with them, the jeans stepped to the closet, opened a secret panel, pushed a button with their frayed tendril edges, and opened a portal. Stepping through with the boy, the jeans were instantly transported to where they were needed most at the moment: a cold battlefield.

Shirts and jackets were brandishing warped hangers and liquid bleach to hold off the shorts and pants in what is commonly referred to as a Laundromat. A pair of slacks hurled three silver buttons and severed an arm off a sweater. The sweater was forced to drop the hanger it was wielding, which was picked up by the slacks. In no time, the slacks had pierced the remains of the sweater and moved on, leaving the rumpled, wrinkled corpse behind.

The jeans found the poodle skirt in charge. One look at the boy the jeans were carrying around and the poodle skirt said “No, soldier. You’re handicapped.”

The jeans looked skirt right in the stitches. “I can fight, boss! The kid won’t be a problem. Won’t even know what’s going on.”

“You think you’re that good, jeans?”

With only a grunt, they nodded and the poodle skirt directed the jeans to lead a flank that had been setup to take the dryers. The jeans nodded and walked the boy over to the staging area.

The air was filled with the gut-wrenching scents of battle: detergent, fabric softener, starch. Glancing to the left, he saw some rookie boxers being shoved into a lint catcher. The jeans almost vomited.

They finally reached the flank’s starting point, next to a folding table. Everyone noticed the human, as evidenced by their shocked gazes. The jeans told his troops to forget about the boy and focus on the mission: taking the dryers. In no time, a plan was made up and they marched out.

But the wretched Torso Huggers launched an ambush. Halfway to the dryers, a fleece pullover and life preserver leaped at the jeans and the boy they were being worn by. They toppled both to the ground and, after a scuffle that ended with the death of some socks, the boy was stripped out of the jeans and dragged to the backroom… where the Delicates were handled.

The jeans never wept but paced in anger.

The poodle skirt came up to confront the jeans. “I told you you were vulnerable, jeans! Now the Huggers have a Wearer and don’t think for a second they’re gonna leave him out of this, like you should’ve.”

The jeans felt horrible. “Let me get ‘em back. Let my get my boy back.”

The skirt shook its waistline. “No. We’re already in too deep on this front. We’re pulling out.”

“I’m not going anywhere without my boy!” shouted the jeans as they raced to the backroom, narrowly avoiding death and moth balls just to get there. At the door, they paused to take a breath… only to realize some young khakis had followed them.

“If it was our Wearer, we’d want to save him too.” The jeans only nodded their thanks before they entered the room for delicate hand washables.

On dozens of racks hung nearly a hundred corpses: blouses, scarves, and wool sweaters. It was a nightmare… for Torso Huggers. For Leg Shielders like the khakis and jeans, it was like Heaven. In the middle of the room, the pullover and life preserver were chanting and clutching a steam vacuum.

“Freeze!” shouted the khakis simultaneously, as they recklessly charged past the jeans! “Get the boy! Get yourselves back home!” But the khakis never had a chance.

The preserver pulled out a lighter and lit the rushers on fire. Being flame retardant, it didn’t have to worry about any back draft. But the pullover did and it also went up in a cinder.

The jeans, being made of sterner stuff, were cautious but knew they weren’t that easy to burn. “I’m just here for my Wearer, preserver. Just want him back so I can get him home.”

“Our hats saw this day coming, you know. When a brash pair of Leg Shielders would drag a Wearer into the fray. They told us to be prepared because we could bring back some of our own with the proper sacrifice.” The preserver gestured at the hanging bodies. “My leaders say that I kill a Wearer and our Elders and Delicates—the ones that Wearers like HIM strangled and drowned—they said that an offering needed to be made to bring them back.”

The jeans found it to be a lot of rubbish and when they advanced forward, the preserver held the lighter next to the sleeping boy’s head. “One more step and his head is ash, dear jeans.”

The blue jeans stopped short with anger coursing through their seams. “Why do this? You’re a life preserver. You’re supposed to preserve the lives of Wearers, not threaten them! Not sacrifice them just because your daft Hugger leaders have some frayed-seam theory about bringing Delicates back to life.”

The preserver faltered and the jeans knew they were getting through.

“And what’s this boy done to deserve this? Just dragged into the wrong place at the wrong time! Let me take him home. This battle’s over.”

With hesitation, the preserver nodded agreement and dropped the lighter. The jeans dashed onto the boy and stood him up. They walked out to the Laundromat’s entrance and before they entered the portal to the boy’s closet, they looked back to see that the lone preserve had lit the dead Delicates on fire.

It stood in the doorway leading to the backroom, the flames behind it bringing out the preserver’s bright colors. “You’re your own man, jeans. Don’t take no crap from no one.”

“I try not to, no.”

“Seems like all us Huggers ever do is wage war to bring back what’s already gone. I don’t want to live like that anymore.”

The jeans only nodded. “So who says you have to? You can live up to your name: preserver of life. Come back with me and come see what being a Leg Shielder is really about.”

The life preserver was trepidatous. “You think your Wearer will have me?”

The jeans smiled with their zipper. “It just so happens I had to kill his last preserver when it tried to let him drown. So there’s a vacancy, yeah.”

The preserver smiled, nodded, and followed the jeans back to the boy’s closet.

A handful of hours later, the boy woke up and felt silly for falling asleep in his jeans. Taking them off, he chucked them into his hamper and went to start the shower.

When he turned around, he was bumped into by the life preserver! It knocked him into the shower’s tub, plugged the drain, and simply waited for the tub to fill while keeping the boy’s screams muffled.

But the devoted blue jeans had been thinking this would happen. They knocked the hamper over, scampered out, then leaped into the tub with the boy and preserver. Caught by surprise, the preserver’s grip on the boy loosened enough to let him get out of the tub.

The jeans clung to the preserver and said “You’re flame retardant, but you’re not immortal!” With that, the jeans yanked the boy’s nearby radio into the water-filled tub and both articles of clothing died: one kind of life preserver and another, more heroic type. The boy, though traumatized, was fine.

And the war between Torso Huggers and Leg Shielders wages on.