My Cape of Many Colors

Fiction By Tamerah // 4/18/2008

“Mom that is such a nice blanket, I really like it...” I said looking longingly at the blanket neatly folded over the back of my Mom’s desk chair. I gave a small sigh and rested my hand on top of the soft blanket, stroking it like I would a cat. My Mom took the hint.
“Do you want it? I don’t ever use it.”
“No, I can’t, it was a gift.” I was determined to resist her a few times, knowing full well she would insist on me taking it now that she knew I wanted it.
“But I never use it, you might as well have it.”
“But it was a gift...” I let myself sound like my false determination for refusing her generous offer was swaying. I looked up questioningly at my Mom as if to ask “Can I really?” She smiled and I smiled, then I swept the blanket up in my arms. It was the most lovely blanket I had ever seen, with long strings of tassels dangling from the ends and woven with rich reds and purples and burnt yellows, and I looked on it with the delight of a child. It was the perfect weight and size for a cape, and despite my sixteen years of age I quickly draped it across my shoulders and adopted a regal air. I thanked my Mom profusely for her gift and went gliding out of the room. I marveled at how it hung so perfectly from my shoulders and slid gently across the carpet in my wake, and for a moment I felt like a princess, like I had always pretended when I was little. I felt like I should have had a crown made of purple construction paper on my head with gems drawn on it in red and blue and green marker. Despite how ridiculous I probably looked I paraded around the house for a good ten minutes with my blanket draped across my shoulders, its deep royal colors making a strange contrast with the criss-cross pattern of my flannel pjs. I treated every person who crossed my path as one of my peasants who existed merely to grant my every wish and I proceeded to order them about with flourishes of my cape which I flaunted at every opportunity. At one point I even went so far as to demand water of my little sister whom I had appointed in the short time of my royalty as Court Jester, though I’m not sure if fetching water from the royal well was really in her job description.
Finally after some time playing at royalty I retired to my room where I tried to order my cat around, and after my attempts failed utterly at making him act the part of Royal Watchdog, I shrugged my cape off my shoulders and immediately upon touching the floor it became once more a simple blanket. The magic that had sent me back to my childhood seemed to have vanished altogether and my cape was reduced to a brightly colored heap on the floor, and I began to feel very plain indeed. How quickly I gave up my childish play for more grown up things!
Later that night my Mom came into my room to say goodnight and saw the blanket on the floor, which the ‘Royal Watchdog’ had adopted as his new bed. She looked disappointed that I had cast it aside so quickly, but she didn’t say anything about it, she only repeated her customary “Don’t stay up too late,” to which I always replied “Ya, okay.” And stayed up as late as I wanted anyways. As soon as my bedroom door had closed behind her I picked the blanket up off the floor, unsettling my cat in doing so who gave me a particularly annoyed look before jumping up onto the windowsill. I carefully smoothed out the wrinkles and wished the magic that the blanket had been alive with before would return. I put it back on my shoulders wearing my regal air, but it was clumsier now and it seemed more strained and fake, like I was trying too hard. Finally I let it slip off my shoulders once more, this time with a lamentable sigh. I held it in my hands for a while then I gently folded it, and set it aside for a day when the magic would return of its own accord and it could again be my cape of many colors.