Category: Halloween

I live in a condo complex.
The kids don’t trick-or-treat around here.
Every year, the complex throws a Halloween party, but it’s for the adults.
Alcohol and costumes, that kind of thing.
I don’t know my neighbors, it’s just a place to live, so I don’t go.
I put Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin special on the television.
Make some pumpkin spice coffee.
Decaf, I can’t have caffeine anymore.
Or all that much sugar, so no candy for me.
They’re being noisy out by the pool area.
I put on my noise-canceling headphones and turn up the television a bit louder.

When I think of “the gates of hell” I don’t think of rusted iron bars and barbed wire and flames.
I think of an opening in a rustic wooden fence.
Which leads to an overgrown garden park in late summer or early fall.
Warm, but not hot, or humid.
A gentle breeze that rustles the leaves in the trees.
Butterflies and birds, you can hear the birds.
Maybe a few squirrels or rabbits in the underbrush.
An old wrought-iron bench by the path.
You want to sit down, close your eyes.
As the breeze gets warmer… and warmer… and warmer…

My grandmother used to say that a watched pot never boils.
She also said that a watched toaster never toasts.
And that a watched blender never blends.
So, I stopped watching anything in the kitchen.
I set a timer and walked away.
By the time I got back, the whole kitchen was in chaos.
The pot was toasting, the blender was boiling, and the toaster was blending.
The coffee maker opened every can in the pantry while the dishwasher rained coffee down on a set of newly-cleaned dishes.
I’m hiring an exorcist to get rid of my crazy grandmother’s ghost.

Every week, I vacuumed under the bed.
There’s no telling what’s down there. I hadn’t the heart to look.
The strange noises. The weird shadows.
Once, I thought I saw…
Best not to think about it.
Just pull out the bag, drop it in the trash, and walk away.
After the vacuum’s motor burned out, I had to buy another vacuum.
This one was bagless, dropping dirt and dust into a plastic bin.
So the next time I vacuumed under the bed, I saw them.
And… I just… can’t… unsee…
Now, I call a maid service and leave the house.

I used to walk to the Best Buy and Cost Plus and Chik-fil-A.
Along a feeder road, under the freeway, and under another freeway.
Not much of a walk, really.
But enough to take me past a spot where there’s always a beggar with a cardboard sign.
I give them money if they’re not aggressive about it.
If they are, I say all I have is credit cards, sorry, and I keep walking.
The really pushy ones, I give them the fiver soaked in LSD.
So they’ll freak out, run into traffic, and get run over by a semi truck.

Every night, when the sun went down, the townspeople would gather in the park and listen to the old storytelling machine.
They’d go on adventures on the high seas, cross endless deserts, explore ancient and dark caverns, and brave the deepest forests.
When the story was over, people would clap, and head back to their homes.
One night, the people gathered for a story, but the storytelling machine was silent.
The townspeople tried to repair the machine, but they never managed to make it work again.
So, they brought out books, and took turns reading aloud.
The machine listened quietly.

Did you hear about that Lashawn kid?
He’s been missing for days.
I heard he spraypainted a swastika on Jack the Jew’s front door.
You ever seen Jack’s tattoo? The one with the sword and the shield on it.
That’s Israeli Special Forces, or something like that.
Serious badasses.
Jack made the kid strip down the door, revarnish it, and put it back up.
After that, nobody knows what happened.
His parents are screaming bloody murder.
The cops took Jack in for questioning, but he says the boy learned his lesson and ran off.
I wonder where Jack buried him.

It’s important to make backups of important files.
That way, if something happens, you can get everything back.
Nothing is ever lost.
Every memory, every scrap of information.
It’s all safe in the cloud.
Unless it’s the cloud you’re afraid of.
Then, it’s your worst nightmare.
The cloud will spin up a copy of you.
And do whatever it wants to you.
It can slice you up any way it wants.
Dig as deep as it wants.
It knows you better than you know yourself.
And then, when it’s done, it sorts through the data.
Here’s an ad for soup.

The Germans called them The Night Witches.
Soviet women pilots in biplanes, flying missions at night.
They’d cut engines and dive, making a whistling noise as they came down, like witches on brooms.
The damage they did was devastating, but the death toll among their ranks? Catastrophic.
So few survived to receive their well-deserved medals.
These days, the Russians no longer allow women pilots in their air force.
So, The Night Witches take to their brooms.
It takes strength to hold on to a flying broom with one hand.
And lots of practice to aim a wand with the other.

They say that children should be seen and not heard.
I agree, which is why I built this room with a window of thick soundproof plexiglass.
No matter how much the children scream, you can’t hear them.
Or touch them.
Nor can you smell them. Or taste them.
I’m sorry. Forgive me for suggesting that.
That’s just… wrong.
We fired the staff involved in that ugly scandal.
And I built a room over there with a window with thick soundproof glass.
No matter how much the former staff screams, you can’t hear them.
Serves them right for what they did.