Glass Eyes at Century City

Century City always gleams brightest at noon, when the sun hits the glass at the exact wrong angle and blinds you into believing you’re in heaven. That’s the trick of the place: so open-air, so landscaped, so drenched in citrus and eucalyptus, you forget it’s just a mall.

I came here to shop, to watch, to be among the beautiful tide. Everyone says Century City is the crown jewel, and everyone is right. The crowd today is perfect—smiling, nodding, drifting past with bags swinging at their hips. The air smells of sunscreen, perfume testers, and hot concrete. The kind of smell that convinces you summer lasts forever.

I keep mental notes as I walk. A woman at Zara, her hair glossy as vinyl, sways under a rack of silk dresses. A man at the Apple Store taps on a demo iPhone without looking at it, his jawline sharp enough to slice. Two teenagers at Lululemon try on leggings in the reflection of the window, grinning at themselves, caught between motion and mirror.

It’s all alive. All bustling. Though, sometimes, I notice how still they are.

The Zara woman hasn’t actually touched a dress yet. The Apple man’s finger hovers, perfectly poised, never pressing down. The teens at Lululemon hold the same pose for minutes at a time. I laugh at myself—so LA, so frozen in beauty, they’ve become living statues.

But what statues. Century City’s mannequins are legendary. Each season more flawless, more real. Their cheekbones catch the sun like prisms. Their hands curve so gently around handbags it makes my own wrists ache. No awkward tilt, no stiff posture. Just bodies that could move if they wanted to, if they thought you were worth it.

I wander deeper, through the open courtyard where fountains leap in choreographed arcs. Water sparkles into mirrored tiles, and in the spray, faces multiply. I wave at a reflection that doesn’t belong to me, but when I turn, the stranger is gone.

It’s easy to get lost here. Stores unspool in polished lines, one after another—Chanel, Bloomingdale’s, Eataly rising like a temple of cheese. The escalators move with hushed precision, carrying worshippers in glossy sneakers to higher floors. Century City doesn’t creak or sigh like old malls. It hums, like circuitry. Like breath.

In Aritzia, I admire a mannequin in a linen jumpsuit. The folds fall just right. Her lips part just enough to suggest a secret. I murmur, “You look incredible,” and swear her head tips a fraction toward me. The clerk behind the counter smiles without blinking, teeth white enough to sear.

I move on, stomach fluttering.

At Sephora, light bounces from a hundred mirrors, so bright it erases shadows. I chat with a woman testing lipstick—she’s elegant, ageless, mouth painted plum.

“That shade looks amazing,”

I say, and she replies, “Do

you need help finding

anything?”

I laugh. “No, just browsing.”

She pauses, lips trembling.

Then repeats: “Do you need

help finding anything?”

Same pitch, same cadence,

a glitch in the music.

I step back, heart skipping. She stays smiling, frozen, like her lips were glued to the phrase. A clerk behind her sprays perfume into the air, a mist that smells faintly of melted plastic.

Back in the sunlight, I try to steady myself. Century City is dazzling. You can’t take it all in at once. If the crowd seems too still, it’s only because they’re beautiful enough to transcend movement. If their eyes shine glassy, it’s only the reflection of the skylights.

By the food court, the tide surges again. Diners bend over poke bowls, burgers, pressed juices. The sound of chewing buzzes in my ears.

It takes me a moment to

notice: none of them

swallow.

Their mouths open, close,

open, close, mechanical as

sewing machines.

The clatter of trays and

chairs covers the pattern,

but once you see it, you

can’t unsee it.

I clutch my shopping bag

tighter.

It doesn’t matter.

Everyone eats differently.

Everyone has their rhythm.

At Nike, I watch a group huddle over sneakers. The mannequins wear the same shoes, bodies bent mid-sprint, frozen in running poses. For a moment, I can’t tell where the customers end and the displays begin. I blink and they’ve switched places—the mannequins holding shopping bags, the shoppers staring still-eyed from pedestals.

I smile nervously.

“Great marketing.”

In the courtyard again, sunlight slices through glass railings. A little boy points at a mannequin in Anthropologie, giggling. His mother hushes him, tugging his arm, but he insists:

“She moved.”

I want to tell him, I saw it

too. But I don’t.

Instead I drift toward Bloomingdale’s, where mannequins in silk gowns stand in glossy clusters like a bridal party. Their faces gleam smooth and poreless. I could swear their eyes follow me as I pass. One tilts her head in acknowledgment, chin so delicate it could shatter.

I murmur, “So lifelike,” and my voice echoes too loudly against the marble.

People don’t shop at Century City. They worship. And the mannequins, oh, the mannequins—this season, they’re perfect.

The sun tilts, later now, though I swear only minutes have passed. The glass ceilings hold the sky in a blistering white glare, time suspended like an insect in amber. The crowd moves slower. Or maybe not slower—just more synchronized, like their steps are wired into the same current.

I tell myself it’s nothing.

Just design.

Century City is designed to

be perfect.

I head toward Eataly, following the smell of warm bread. Inside, rows of diners lift forks in unison. Silver glints, food hovers midair, but no one swallows. A man twirls spaghetti endlessly on his fork, never lifting it to his mouth. A woman with a glass of red wine rotates the stem, turning it clockwise, clockwise, clockwise. Her lips remain dry.

I clear my throat. Chairs creak. Heads turn toward me—every diner’s face swiveling at once. Their eyes shine blank as showroom glass. I bolt, laughter rising in my throat like static.

Back outside, I stop at Chanel. The mannequins are arranged like a gala, gowns glittering in the sunlight. A black dress shimmers oil-slick blue as I move past. I lean closer, entranced.

And the mannequin blinks.

It’s quick—just a flick of lashes, a wet gleam of iris. But I see it. Her gaze slices me open. I stumble back into the walkway, colliding with a man carrying a Gucci bag. His face remains serene, but his arm twists at an angle no joint should allow, snapping back into place as though wound on hinges.

The mannequins at Chanel tilt their heads as one, like birds hearing a sound too high for human ears. Their dresses whisper against one another though no wind moves.

I run.

The Apple Store beckons with clean white light, rows of phones glowing like communion wafers. I touch a screen. It flickers through my photos, though I never synced it. There I am, in the mall moments ago, reaching for a mannequin’s hand. I snatch my fingers away, heart pounding, and the image dissolves into static.

“Do you need help finding

anything?”

The clerk’s voice comes

from behind me, flat,

rehearsed.

I turn and find three of

them standing shoulder-to-

shoulder, same height,

same face, same polo. They

smile, lips uncracking.

“I—no, I’m fine,” I whisper.

They echo: “Do you need

help finding anything?”

I back away.

Their smiles widen in

perfect sync.

I stumble into Uniqlo, the safe minimalism of stacks of sweaters. But even here, mannequins wait—rows of them in puffer jackets, jeans, sneakers. One wears my same shoes. Another wears my same shirt. A third has my crooked smile, sculpted in plastic.

A customer brushes past me, muttering. I whirl—only to realize it’s another mannequin, lips parted in frozen complaint.

The walls close in. My chest heaves.

At Sephora again, I find the lipstick woman still standing in front of the mirror. The same plum color smudged across her mouth, the same perfume clerk spritzing the same cloud of melted plastic scent. They haven’t moved. Not at all.

I whisper, “Are you alive?”

Their reflections nod,

though their bodies stay

still.

I flee into the courtyard. The fountains hiss and leap, jets of water arcing into the air. Except they’re not water—they’re mannequins, hundreds of porcelain arms reaching upward, fingers flexing as the spray catches sunlight.

Shoppers circle the fountain, their mouths opening and closing in mechanical hunger. No words. Just the wet click of jaws unhinging, snapping shut.

The little boy from earlier points at me. His mother yanks him close, face smooth, pores sealed shut. “Don’t look,” she hisses, but the sound comes out monotone, like an intercom announcement.

I want to leave. I want to run. But the mall grows deeper the more I try to find the exit. Corridors branch, escalators multiply. I descend into Bloomingdale’s, but the ground floor drops into another courtyard, another food court, another Bloomingdale’s. Century City stretches in fractals, infinite, gleaming.

At Shake Shack, mannequins bite burgers, their teeth grinding through plastic buns.

At the Tesla showroom, mannequins drive cars, heads rotating on stiff necks to check mirrors.

At Warby Parker, mannequins try on frames, each pair reflecting me a hundred times over.

I’m laughing now, high and brittle. Maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe Century City has always been this alive.

In Anthropologie, the mannequins wear wedding gowns. A bridal party frozen mid-laughter, silk pooling like blood around their pedestals.

I reach out and brush a

hem, and the mannequin’s

hand clamps onto mine.

Hard plastic, unyielding,

but warm as flesh.

I gasp and pull back, skin

bruised.

The mannequin tilts her

head.

Her painted mouth

stretches wide, too wide,

splitting into a grin.

The other bridesmaids

turn, smiles cracking their

cheeks.

I run into a fitting room, slamming the curtain shut. My breath echoes in the small cube. The mirror reflects me, flushed and trembling.

“Nice fit,” a voice says.

I whirl.

The curtain is closed, but a

mannequin stands inside

with me, shoulders bent

wrong to squeeze into the

stall.

Its plastic face is mine,

down to the scar on my

chin.

It holds a neatly folded pile

of clothes in its stiff arms.

“Nice fit,” it repeats, my

voice layered under the

plastic echo.

I scream and shove past it, tearing into the mall. My feet slip on polished tile. The escalator pulls me up, up, handrails slick like living snakes under my palms. I trip and crawl, but the steps keep moving.

At the top, the courtyard yawns open. The crowd has gathered. Hundreds of mannequins in designer clothes, frozen in a ring. Their glassy eyes turn as one to fix on me.

And then, movement. A ripple through their bodies. Heads tilt. Arms twitch. One steps down from its pedestal with a creak of joints, then another, then another.

The mannequins are

moving.

I stumble backward, breath

tearing out of me.

They’re watching.

They’ve been watching all

along.

And now they’re coming

closer.

The mannequins close in with the silence of snowfall. Their clothes rustle like dry leaves, their plastic joints ticking faintly, the sound of clocks out of sync. The ring tightens, and I feel my pulse matching their rhythm.

“It’s fine,” I mutter. “They’re props. They’re just props.”

But the nearest one—draped in Gucci velvet—tilts her head and breathes. I hear the hiss slide between her painted lips.

A security guard pushes through the crowd. Relief floods me, dizzy and sharp. His neon vest gleams, flashlight swinging in his hand. “Ma’am, you can’t be here after closing,” he says, voice flat.

“Finally—please, help me.

They’re moving. The

mannequins are—”

Then he lifts his sunglasses, and his eyes are glass marbles, round and perfect. Behind him, more guards appear, stepping in mechanical rhythm, their radios buzzing with the same phrase on loop: “Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm.”

My throat closes. I shove past, racing toward the exit. Century City’s glass doors loom at the far end of the courtyard. I crash into them—only to find nothing beyond. Just more mall. Another courtyard, another Bloomingdale’s, another ring of mannequins watching.

Century City folds back on itself, endless.

I stagger into the Apple Store again, breath ragged. The demo phone flickers on by itself. The screen shows a video feed—not of me standing here, but of me frozen in place, plastic and stiff, shoppers streaming around.

You’ve been here all along.

The mannequins surround me, their faces serene, blank, perfect. I stumble backward into Uniqlo, into the row of mannequins dressed in sweaters. One of them is me. Not just resembling me—me. Down to the bruise on my wrist from earlier, the chipped nail on my thumb. My mouth parted just enough to suggest speech, eyes wide with false surprise.

“That’s not me,” I whisper.

But the mannequin

whispers back: “That’s not

me.”

The words echo around the store, voices multiplying, mannequins repeating my own denial until the air is thick with it. That’s not me. That’s not me. That’s not me.

I run. Fitting rooms gape open, curtains billowing like lungs. Mirrors reflect not me but crowds of mannequins all frozen mid-step. I crash through one, glass raining down in silver shards—and step into another courtyard, another Century City, brighter, sharper, cleaner than the last.

The mannequins are everywhere now. They stand in the fountains, they sit at Shake Shack, they ride the escalators with serene patience. Shoppers and mannequins blur together until I can’t tell which is which. Maybe there was never a difference.

My chest burns. I claw at my throat, desperate for air.

And then I see it.

A display window.

Bloomingdale’s, polished to

a mirror shine.

Inside, a new figure stands

among the mannequins.

Same shirt.

Same shoes.

Same trembling hands.

Same wild eyes.

It’s me.

I lunge forward, pounding the glass. My reflection doesn’t move. The mannequins in the window turn toward it, placing handbags in its arms, draping coats over its shoulders, folding sweaters into its hands. My reflection accepts every item with a stiff smile.

“No!” I scream. “I’m real, I’m real—”

But the shoppers stream past without glancing at me. Their eyes slide away, unfocused. To them, I’m already display.

I feel it starting in my hands—the stiffness, the gloss, the cool plastic creeping into my veins. My fingers lock in a graceful curl, perfect for holding merchandise. My spine straightens, shoulders pulled back by unseen wires. My breath slows until it halts, a single frozen gasp.

Inside the glass, my

mannequin-self blinks.

Once.

Slowly.

And I understand.

I was never shopping.

I was being fitted.

The mannequins don’t

replace us.

They collect us.

The mall hums around me, lights flickering, fountains hissing. Background music swells, cheerful as ever, as my mouth stretches into a smile painted from the inside out. Shoppers pass by, admiring my posture, my outfit, my stillness. One leans in and whispers, “So lifelike.”

I want to scream, but no sound comes. My lips stay parted just enough to suggest a secret. And Century City breathes on, endless, immaculate, alive.