She fluffed her freshly dyed purple hair on the towel until it stopped dripping

She scrunched it between her long fingers giving it a bit of a wave

Then she pulled on her long checkered stockings

And her red tennies

Slipped into her pink striped sweater and a flirty yellow skirt

Slid on her knitted bumblebee arm mitts and some big chunky jewelry

She'd made of bottle caps and copper wire and corks and pop tops

And she stepped out onto the drab city streets

.

Like tired zombies they roamed the streets

When all the world was gray

The slate steel sky felt like it was sucking the life out of her

Passersby glared at her with hollow eyes

Some looked at her vacantly as if she didn't quite compute

Others tsked tsked and wagged their heads

Two girls in tattered dirty clothes passed by and bent to whisper between them

Pointing at her in hushed whispers and laughing to each other

.

She caught her reflection in the cracked department store window

At Fifth St. and Industrial Way

She stood at attention and gave herself a mock salute

She repeated the DIY motto

'One should never take oneself too seriously

Because life is color and color is life

And drabness is the enemy

March on soldier, march on'

.

She squeezed through a ripped chain link fence and took a short cut through the park

Past the broken swings and rusted teeter-totters

And the slide that had fallen over long ago

She tugged a dandelion out of the weeds under the swings

And tucked it into her purple hair

And danced on to the end of the park

Down the creek bed and over to a big gnarled oak

She pushed aside a blackberry bush and felt the string in her fingers

Feeling for the knot at the end

She pulled it free from the bush and gave it three sharp tugs

And a bell far above her rang 3 times

.

A platform opened under the treehouse

A thick rope fell from the hole

And soon to follow another pair of red tennies

Baggy green trousers

And then the rest of him

And he embraced her and swung her around and around

And covered her with kisses

Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and drank her in with his eyes

You...

Kiss...

Look...

Kiss..

Amazing!

She tossled his long blonde locks

And stuck the dandelion in the buttonhole of his purple shirt

.

Then they both stood at attention, saluted

And said together,

'One should never take oneself too seriously

Because life is color and color is life

And drabness is the enemy

March on soldier, march on'

Then they burst into a fit of giggles

And tumbled onto the ground laughing and wrestling.