The Coat That Wouldn't Come Off! by A. A. Augustine

Johnny had just walked up from earlier before he entered in to the alley with told man.
They were silent the whole short walk with Johnny lost in thoughts of simple first love and
the lady in the dress engulfed in the beautiful sparks of colorful light that were silently glowing all
around her. Guiding them and softly lighting the way to the end of the corridor to this other doorway.
The lady in the bluebird hat finally broke the beautiful silence and with it, Johnny’s dreamy
haze stopping at the bottom of some steps leading up to this new door.
She gestured Johnny toward it.
“ Open it... it’s OK” She said softly almost in a whisper.
Her voice almost sounded musical thought Johnny.
“Go ahead.” She said. “Please. I think you’ll enjoy what you see on the other side. Don’t
be afraid.” She was gesturing toward the door one more time.
But it was hopeless.
Johnny was lost in his head. Dreaming of an impossible future with the lady in the polka
dotted dress with the blue bird hat and the kaleidoscopic, fairy-like, miniature fireworks display all
around her.
“Hello?… Johnny? Are you in there? Hello?” The lady snapped her fingers in front of
Johnny’s face.
He was starring right at her, but Johnny was just gone. Lost in a sea of tranquil, domestic
bliss. The lady in the polka dotted dress and the blue bird hat then clapped her hands twice, loudly in
front of Johnny’s face. This time her voice even louder.
“Johnny! Young man! This is no time for daydreaming! There’s important work to be done
and we are running out of time!”
She clapped her hands once more, even louder.
Johnny came to quickly out of his dreamy fantasy and snapped his head slightly forward
starring blankly at the lady in the polka dotted dress and blue bird hat.
“Well, go on silly, open it.” She said and gestured one final time up toward the large metal
door.
Johnny realized he was day dreaming and felt himself turn three shades of red in the
process.
He was quite embarrassed and hoped his loopy smile and flushed face didn’t give his
sudden and first-in-his-life feelings of infatuation toward the lady in the polka dotted dress and blue
bird hat away.
“Oh… oh yeah” Johnny said, half-snapped out of his beautiful daydream.
He quickly shook his head from left to right and shrugged his shoulders and stammered
and swaggered a little and pulled up his pants and chuckled a small embarrassing “awww shucks” of
a laugh as the brain fog lifted and he realized what was going on.
Johnny cautiously stepped up the first stair and began to slowly, hesitatingly reach up to
the large metal door grasping the cold handle that was ten sizes to big for his tiny little grip and began
pulling with all his might. He noticed how awfully heavy the door was, but thought to himself that
he mustn’t show it and continued to pull, making small grunting noises in an attempt to woo and
impress his new found lady faire with his brute, manly strength.
As the door began to open, a great light filled his eyes and distorted all he saw in front of
him.
“Oh no, not another hallway and another mystery person.” Johnny thought to himself.
But as his eyes quickly adjust to the light, he climbed up the last step and went down and
stopped on the first step on the other side of the doorway to get a look at where he was.
“Well!” thought Johnny, “it’s the alley I was just on with the old homeless man who turned
into the tattered-top-hated man from behind the table.”
He looked left , he looked right and concluded it. “Yep, it sure was!”
He knew it by heart! Every building, mailbox and crack in the pavement! Why, he could
walk it backwards blindfolded and tell you exactly where he was every step of the way he told
himself. He knew this whole side of town by heart.
But then he stopped and turned and looked at the doorway he had just come out of and
realized he had never noticed this door before. Ever. Surely he would have remembered a door as
large and imposing as this one. Johnny looked back again at the doorway.
The lady with the polka dotted dress and the blue bird hat had now made her way up the