Digging through my closet for costumes to wear for Halloween, I came upon a big bag of cloth and outfits from a time when I was content to make-believe by myself, in my room, with nothing more then many colored strips of fabric and old dresses. Instantly the memories of the stories I dreamed up came to me, and the hundreds of outfits I had wrapped myself in washed over me. I sat for a long time, looking at each different piece of material and recollected how I had twisted and tied them to make myself some one else. My favorite was at the bottom of the bag. Bright pink and white material, which had once been one square of fabric, but I had cut it into two pieces. One had served as either my top or my hood; cut into a triangle and either tied like a bandana around my chest, or drooped over my head and left to hang, thinking I looked hidden and mysterious. The other half was the only thing in the bag that I had ever sewn, since stitching it together limited its use. But for that piece, my favorite, I didn�t mind. I would put it around my waist to look like a gypsy's skirt, long in the back but slowly making its way up a diagonal slit in the front. Other times I hitched it under my arms to make it a short dress, down to my knees in the back, and just above mid thigh in the front. I stood in front of the mirror in my room until it was perfect, and then my imagination took over, transporting me into other worlds and far away places. I still remember my stories like it was yesterday, especially with the same two bolts of pink cloth held in my hands. My senses began to blur, the same as they had a hundred times before. I opened my eyes, not to the world outside, but to the magic I held inside. The blackness gave way to colors, sounds and smells of a place created by myself to escape to. Strange creatures walked passed and paid me no mind as the continued with their normal routine. I could hear music from bards, bantering and haggling in a hundred different languages. Smells of bizarre things cooking on spits and in ovens. I saw friends that I had known, that had adventured with me to the corners of this world, and back, always waiting for me to leave the real world behind to return to them. The images and sounds faded quickly. Too quickly. The hole in my chest that I hadn�t noticed until now left me dazed, and missing simpler times when all I needed to be happy was a remnant of fabric and my vivid imagination. Highschool and boyfriends chased the simplicity away, and I had packed up my play dresses, too attached to throw them away, but feeling to grown up to put them on. Left to collect dust. Now I gather them from the back of my closet and from the long forgotten corners of my mind, and dig through the materials, picking out the same pink and white fabric that had been my favorite. Standing in front of the mirror again, safety pins in hand, I pinned it together, much the same as I wore it all those years ago, and pranced off to work on Halloween, thinking of how nice it was to get such joy out of something so simple. Putting on a make believe costume and laughing for no other reason then because I can. If only every day could be Halloween. . .