The Dead Woman's Coat

The coat stood standing in the dark.  I could feel its presence behind the closet door.  If it had hands it would turn the door knob and let itself out.  After all, the coat had a purpose to haunt and hang an intimidating effect that was not to be ignored.  The smell was a faint pressed light must odor that was not to be confused with perfume.  It lingered with puffy shoulders that even a baker would not want to wear on its head.  Of course it was headless and that was the scary part.  The person it was became cold and now the life of which it had become hung there dead.  In the morning I would run out of the bed and say a prayer that it would not follow me downstairs to the dining room table for breakfast.  As I looked at my siblings who were quietly sipping the drippy bumpy oatmeal there was a bit of comfort that I was no longer alone.  Alone was becoming a welcoming word as I wished day and night for the coat to be gone.  Where?  Somewhere else besides in the closet that was sealed in my bedroom.  I tip-toed upstairs even with the creak and sounds of the board underneath the plaid red Scottish pattern carpet that groaned, the coat could not be ignored.