This Is No Narnia

Imagine a wardrobe. Your wardrobe, with rows of hangers and shelves. There is that nice dress you wore to a wedding, the dress you wore to a party, the dress that is really too short for you. Then there are the tops: the ones you forgot about, the ones you wore once, that top you never should have bought. Then there are your standing jeans, your sitting jeans, your comfy jeans, your jeans that you probably don’t fit into.

Now you are looking through your wardrobe, into a wardrobeless land. There is a girl, looking through your busy wardrobe to you. There are no walls. There is mud beneath her feet. You are peering through your dresses like bars. The girl is wearing her own dress, one of a few. She has no shoes. You are wearing slippers on a carpet. The girl is walking. She has walked for miles in her long dress. The dress is not too clean, there is dust all around, but it is a dress all the same. In this dress she will do it all, but she won’t ever go to school.

You shut your wardrobe and the girl is gone. You still need your clothes. The wardrobe opens. The girl is gone.

There is a man now. He doesn’t look at you and you are trying not to look at him. The man is sitting down. He leans against the doorway of a shop long gone. He wears all his clothes, clothes that have not been washed since the person before him. The clothes are growing too big for him, they are falling off his bones.

Now there is a new woman alone. She is young and wears a pretty top. You think you have that top too, except this one is ripped, the strap is cut. You can see her lacey bra. This girl is wearing red pants. Red pants under a skirt her mum told her was a little too short. She didn’t think so then, but she wants to tug it down now. She wishes she wore jeans, jeans that would match her mascara-stained cheeks. This girl won't like any of her wardrobe now. This girl will fear red.

Now everything is black. Black hats, black suits, black dresses, black shoes. Everything is black and the sky is grey. There are clammy cheeks and hushed whispers, sodden tissues, and blurry eyes. You are there too, in your little black dress. Your black dress is not appropriate here. Everything is black except a white coffin. A coffin too small.