halloween

Trees were green with orange toupees. Other trees leaned and were more vulnerable, scared of October and losing their leaf-flakes, drifting, falling to one side in half-circles mirroring their shape, outlining the green grass like a body at a crime scene. The house at the end of the sparsely traveled leaf drive greeted one with purple cobwebs stitched over brown shrubs, and a bizarre rotting pumpkin on the crumbling porch with its face caved in, the twin brother of the old man close up at the door looking down at me, with his twisted furious jaw and white powdery skin. I detected no rusted bolts in his neck, but his eyes did not match, one looking at me and one looking way over there.

Once, I had seen him out on his property shaking a tree back and forth trying to loosen stubborn innocent leaves. I'd stop, straddling my bike laughing at him and he'd shaken his fists at me, but I was now disguised behind a 39 cent smiling tiger mask that fogged up my glasses since there were no nose holes. The smell of staleness and decay seeped beneath my ill-fitting mask as his stick arm came towards me with a handful of candy corn. I screamed and ran away hearing coughing laughter.