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There once was a woman who wore layers and layers of clothing: shirts and skirts, sweaters and coats, hats and trousers, blouses and boots of every imaginable colour, shape and size.
She wore everything she had ever been given, all at the same time, and she never took her garments off. Sometimes a layer would just slough off, after growing threadbare due to weather and wear. The woman had no preferences for this shade or that style, she loved all her clothes the same. In fact, she got so attached to her layers that you couldn’t talk her out of one scarf or mitten, no matter how hot the day or persuasive your reasoning. She wouldn’t give anything up. She would, however, take on new stuff and, indeed, the best way to become her friend was to offer her a piece of apparel. She would seize it, put it on and display it proudly no matter how worn or sodden, smelly or nice. She made it all her own.
I would like to tell you something about her face but it was hard to get a look at her through all the clothes she wore. Rumour had it she had short brown hair, bright brown eyes, and somewhat pointy white teeth. To verify that rumour, you would have to peer down a dark tunnel of clothes and that would not be advisable because all the weight of her clothes had made her scratchy and snappish. The only way to make her happy (and ensure not being bitten) was to give her something colourful. It would seem to lighten her load.
Day and night, night and day, she looked for clothes and begged for clothes and sometimes even robbed for clothes until she became so weighed down that she could hardly walk. One hot summer afternoon, while making her way down a country road, she stumbled and fell. Unable to get up under her own weight, she went to sleep on that very spot. When people passed, they commented on what a clever idea it was to make a big mound out of colourful fabric. The town needed a nice hill. Time went by, and people threw all their old clothes onto the hill, so it grew larger and larger until one day, the children in the village came to play on the top. Before long their parents built them a playground there, and they filled the air with their laughter.
Time passed, and more time passed, and then one day, the woman woke up. She could hear muffled laughter high above her but she was stuffed down so far in her hill of clothes she could move neither arms nor legs. Thinking very small, she began to worm her way out of her garments. It took a huge amount of concentration, but she found that she could indeed wriggle
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