After a long day of fantasy play, it was no wonder witches sometimes entered my dreams. My brother and I shared a room across the hall from my parents, while my sister had her own room. But when we got scared by things that go bump in the night, it was my sister's door we'd knock on. Since it was not in her plan to host annoying younger siblings, she begrudgingly let us in... but made us sleep in her closet. We'd wrap up in the blankets that we brought with us to wait out the fear. Hanging on the hooks above our heads were huge petticoats made of tulle... de rigueur for little girls of the 50's. Perfect tinder for the candles and matches my sister gave us for light in the otherwise dark closet. My brother and I would huddle together, mesmerized by the candle flame flickering up toward the waiting petticoats. Amazingly, we never burned the house down during those 1001 Closet Nights.
Being a "good girl", I never played with matches beyond my sister's closet. But my brother was just getting started, continuing to experiment with matches in our playroom closet downstairs... until the day the flames caught hold. Somehow, my mother managed to put out the flames before the entire house went up in smoke. (Living far out in the country, the fire trucks would never have made it on time.) But an entire closet full of toys were charred beyond recognition before the flames were finally put out.
Sooner or later, we were all tempted to play with fire, either literally or figuratively.
Unfortunately, we never knew who was going to get burned. As we grew up, we just became more of who we were back then. Today my sister is an uber-organized, successful businesswoman who is undeterred by setbacks; I still tend to turn inward and long to hide in a closet when experiencing self-doubt; and my brother crashed and burned, eventually ending up homeless and without means of support. Sadly, he's the one who played with fire and lost.
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