I really used to do this...this whole story is true.

The girl is moving around in her room, humming loudly to herself, little

bursts of lyrics interspersed with the wordless melody. They can hear her,

and they know what she is doing. They ready themselves, small, excited

whispers passing back and forth in the close confines of the closet.

Her footsteps slowly come near, clomping heavily in her new clogs. She opens

the door and peers in, chubby face covered with a large, crooked-toothed

smile and surrounded by wavy brown hair. In the crook of her dimpled elbow

she holds a stack of brightly-colored dresses and skirts.

"How are you all today?" she asks, surveying the rows of clothes-hangers.

Her snaggle-toothed smile widens even more as she sees the diversity of the

types of hangers. There are the large, heavy wooden ones, stolen from her

father's closet, that once sported heavy pants but now hold small flowered

dresses. There's a paper-covered hanger with the word "Goodwill" on the

side...some cashier in the distant past had forgotten to take it out of the

merchandise. There were many, many of the smaller, plain wire

clothes-hangers that the girl uses only when she must.

She reaches in and as she does, she hears a little voice squeal in

excitement. She giggles a little and pulls out her personal favorite; a

sturdy hanger wrapped with varying colors of brown embroidery thread. She

holds it up to her hair, showing it how the colors match, then takes from

the pile on her arm a pretty blue dress with white lace on the sleeves.

"Today you get the blue one," she says and places the brown coathanger back

into the closet. She reaches in again and hears a collective gasp as all of

the clothes-hangers hold their breath. Who will be next?

"Daddy's old hanger for this nasty stretched out black thing," she says and

sticks a faded skirt onto the heavy wooden hanger. Wrinkling her snub nose,

she moves on. Choosing first the brightly colored plastic hangers, then

moving on to the thin wire ones, she has a comment for each hanger as she

hangs her clothes on them. She moves in order of favorite to least favorite,

in hangers and clothing, until finally the pile of clothing is gone.

The girl peers in, giving all of the hangers a last, fond glance.

"Have a good night, everyone," she says and shuts the door firmly.

As soon as darkness has enveloped them, a small, nasal voice starts to

speak.

"You're such a teacher's pet, Brownie! If you weren't a hanger you'd

probably be a piece of toilet paper...always kissing a-"

An older, more mature voice cut him off. "That's enough! I will have no foul

language in my closet!"

All the hangers turned, the clothing swaying and rustling, to face the heavy

wooden hanger from which dangled the pitiful, faded black skirt.

"Aw, chief. I'm so sorry, man," said Brownie, twisting the collar of the

blue dress in anguish. "You really got it bad today."

"I, unlike the rest of these shallow creatures, do not care what I carry, as

long as I am doing my job."

One of the thin wire hangers, carrying an orange jumper, sneers and turns away. "Yeah, yeah, goody two-shoes. Don't give me that load of duty crap. This little girl is way too boring. Get me into some hooker's closet...now THAT would be fun!"

Brownie gasped and glanced nervously at the Chief. "Don't say such things! I'm sure you should be very grateful we get to carry such light clothing! These dresses are so small."

The Chief nods, but another wire hanger rolls his eyes. "Oh, please. Look at this lame shirt! Green with a collar is so out. Stupid girl has no sense of fashion."

The other wire hangers snicker, but a bright pink plastic one frowns. "Look who's talking! I think lime green is in. You're, like, so out of the loop anyway, what do you know?"

The other plastic hangers, snickering, chime in with preppy fashion advice for the wire hangers. The wire hangers are starting to get angry, and are trembling, their hooks rattling against the wooden pole on which they are hung.

"Stop this, all of you!" the Chief says, but to no avail. The arguing escalates, and finally one of the smaller, weaker plastic hangers gets excited and falls off the pole. There is a long silence, then chaos erupts in the closet. The Chief and Brownie slide along the pole until they are out of the way, but the rest of them are flying everywhere. Wires are tangling with plastic, clothing is slipping from the hangers, and everything is a total mess.

"Oh, dear. I have a feeling the girl will be upset," remarks Brownie to the Chief. They shrug and continue to watch the demolition of the closet. Brownie twitches a hem of the blue skirt out of the way of a flying wire hook.

***

In the morning, the girl opens the closet and squeaks in surprise and anger.

"Emma! Were you playing hide and go seek in the closet again?" she yells to her sister angrily. Her younger sibling comes running and looks in bewilderment at the closet.

"I swear I wasn't in there!" said Emma, frantically trying to find somewhere to redirect her sister's wrath.

The closet is in total ruins. There are only two hangers left on the entire pole, and they stare back at the girl blankly, innocently. She frowns.

"What in the world were you guys doing last night?" she mutters to the tangled pile of clothing and hangers. Her sister stares at her.

"Sarah, did you just...do you talk to your clothes-hangers?"

The girl looks up quickly and blushes, her cheeks slowly turning deep pink. "Um...of course...don't be silly. I...I don't talk to things that don't talk back!"

Emma looks at her, unconvinced, then runs away to play with the girl's other sibling. The girl stares down at the pile of clothes, shakes her head, then quietly begins to put the hangers back on the pole. The clothes-hangers wait for a word of forgiveness from the girl, but she says nothing, not even to the heavy wooden one or the wrapped brown one. They are puzzled, but think maybe she's just angry at them.

She never talks to them again. When she puts her clothes away, she hangs them up efficiently and quietly. She still thinks about them, and wishes people would not laugh at her when she talked to the hangers. They were a pleasant, friendly little society, and talking with them was fun.

The years pass and she grows from cheery, plump child to cheery, plump young woman. She has the large imagination that she had as a child, and still thinks about that game she used to play to make her chores pass more quickly, and she wonders...

She wonders if those worlds we create as children still exist when we no longer believe in them. When we no longer believe that the inanimate objects in our closet have feelings and desires...what happens to those feelings and desires that once existed? Do they die out when they have been forgotten?

She wonders if, when she isn't looking, her closet is full of the sounds of tiny whispers, talking about how the girl's clothes are getting larger and heavier as she gets older. Perhaps her daddy's old hanger complains of back pain when she hands her heavy jean skirt on his wooden frame. She wonders if they still argue about who the girl favors most, argue about what clothes they are allowed to carry. She wonders if, even though she no longer participates in the game, they still continue to play. Once awakened, will those objects we played with as children become once again simply objects after we no longer make-believe? Or do they keep the life we instill in them with our imaginations?

It's logically impossible, this the girl knows. Clothes-hangers are clothes-hangers, and no more alive or capable of feeling than her old stuffed zebra.

Still, she wonders...