A Storm kept the Witches Brewing inside

10/31/19 22:29 Bethlehem, PA

There have not been any trick-or-treeters, I didn’t see any kids dressed in costumes around the neighborhood.  It’s raining and very windy.  No run after work.  I made my veggie dinner and read and watched a Ted Talk, spoke with Mo Cheeks who had a smile on her face, she loves Halloween.  One year, we took her to my parent’s neighborhood since our neighborhood at the time did not celebrate Halloween.  Well, they did but kids were not going up to most of the doors.  But back at my parents, it was a mob scene, kids were all over, parents were pushing little wagons full of beer and drinking, getting a bit buzzed on the walk.  I was impressed and vowed we would be back every year after that, but we didn’t come back.  The following year something else happened, and the year after that and now she’s 25 and in law school and I am in Bethlehem listening to the rain pelting the windows, lightning and thunder…oh to fall asleep in the rain…in autumn…

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It's the NIGHT before Halloween, a short short

10/30/19 22:12 Bethlehem, PA

It’s the night before Halloween and there are no creatures stirring on this block. They are waiting in anticipation for tomorrow night.  For some, costumes will be necessary to hide their zombie faces, their skin barely attached to the rotting facial muscles.  Lips are no more.  Grizzled teeth.  For others, the aliens who walk among us, they are free to disperse all the candy they have adulterated in their kitchen to the little ones who beg for it.  Parents wave from the safety of the sidewalk, prodding their naïve and trusting runts to go up and beg for another handful.  Go ahead.  Just knock on the door, they will give you candy.  It’s free.  The black cats are pruning their fur with oil and gasoline from the dumpsters behind the local garage.  They dab a little green antifreeze, so their eyes can really stand out in the night.  Up the road the cemetery is quiet, except for some skeletons who are assembling their bones, they need to walk around the town and make the best of the night.  Ghosts are napping in the trees, whole families congregate, the Italians are taking up a row of trees, even in death they can’t stand being too distant from one another.  While the children continue to get more candy…barely noticing the smell ruminating from the roofs where the witches brood and cast spells…

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