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Every year I sit on these steps. Such a sullen form. It's Halloween and the world is wild with spirits, ghouls and monsters. The shop upon who's steps I sit is closed. The lone gaslight over the door casts my shadow long and dark across the cobbled street to the walk across the way.



How many years have I spent this night here. Sitting upon the stoop like a gargoyle. Such a sullen form. A pitiable man. Alone in this world and the next. Hardly a man at all. A shadow of my former self. Dead these long years past. How? I no longer remember. How? I no longer care. I only sit and wait. For what seems distant too. For eternity perhaps. For an end to me and everything else. Loneliness makes beggars of us all.



If only...just a friendly ear, a quiet listener to hear me and understand. Someone to take away the chill that seeps from me like a sieve. This deserted street. Does it seem colder this year. The heat from the gaslamp seems evermore absent as I continue my reverie. My watch over this deserted boulevard. Not even a passing coach to break the monotony.



It begins to snow.



My mood falls in tune with the snowfall. Colder and more despondent. I stare at the ground and watch as the white begins to erase everything.



"You're sad huh?"



A child's voice. In this desolation of my existence the voice is like an angel. I look up and see the cherub there. A tiny vagabond child. All rags and dirt but in this light...in the lone light of the lamp with the snow falling around him. Yes an angel.



"I'm sorry you're so sad," the child says. Eyes like big bowls of water. A face red from cold but full of genuine and devout compassion. "Are you waiting for someone?"



Someone. Was it someONE I waited for? I don't remember but I nod yes. I think maybe it was.



"You've been waiting long," the child guesses. I nod again. Yes. It's been forever.



"If you want, I can sit and wait with you."



Such selflessness. Such giving. A saint not a child. To wait with this comfortless broken man until whoever was meant to meet me does so. In the cold. In the snow. In the shallow light of this one gaslamp. I felt warmer as he took a seat next to me on the step. Still a frozen soul abandoned in on an empty street. But maybe...just a little warmer...maybe just a little less abandoned.



We sit in silence and watch the snow fall...We keep each others company for what feels like hours. The first such hours of human contact and comradery that I have felt since as long as I can remember. It is clear that this will be a long friendship.



That morning, on All Saints Day, the shop keeper finds the small frozen body of an orphan child alone on the steps of his door. A soft blanket of snow covers his head and shoulders. He died under that single gas lamp and the shop keeper can't help but think the child looks a bit like a little ice angel there in the snow...

"Trick or treat."



"Oh and what are you little man...Conak the Barbarian?"



It's barely worth justifying her remark with an answer..."He-man," I say. Bring her back to the task at hand man...don't let this slip away.



"Trick or treat," I say again.



"Aren't you just so cute," she smiles and calls out, "Bernie come look at little Carnak the Barbarian."



"He-Man," I say again.



A groan from inside coupled with the sound of a football announcer indicates that Bernie neither cares nor intends to see my costume. I assume he's not in charge of the candy anyway so I could care less.



"Here you go darling," She says and drops a couple of tiny boxes into my plastic jack-o-lantern bucket. Raisins.



"Oh...raisins." So it's gonna be raisins eh? I don't know what time warp this lady came from but I'm not about to play for raisins. I don't even eat raisins at recess in Mrs. Gimbals class. I'm certainly not going to stand for raisins on Halloween. Candy. CANDY DAMNIT! That's what every person should be handing out tonight and you're insane or stupid if you think there's not consequences for trying to change that. My Now'N'Later is nearly dissolved on my tongue. The need for sugar is crystalizing like rock candy in my muscles. A droplet of sweat forms underneath my He-Man mask.



I keep the Exacto blade in the hilt of my "Live Action Sounds - He-Man Sword". The old lady never sees it coming. Quick as you can say, "stupid Sally Baker eats paste," (and she does) I've managed to bring this unknown defiler of Halloween down to my level and cut her esophogous. She lies there trying to speak but only spitting choking noises get out.



"You bitch...you did not just give me raisins did you? I'll show you what you can do with your raisins."



Soon she's unconscious and bleeding in her doorway. My "Live Action Sounds - He-Man Sword" has a dent now from where I crushed her oxipital lobe. I manage to get her a bit further inside her door and then shut it to let her gasp for air alone. Bernie won't even notice until halftime when he asks for a beer and she doesn't answer. By then I'll be long gone - at home and in Candyland. A sugar high all my own. Lost in the magic swirls of caramel and nougat until my tiny body can't take the adrenaline/sugar rush and I throw up and crash for the night.



"Next time you better have a Butterfinger or a Life Alert necklace," I say over my shoulder. Don't mess with a 10 year old's fix.



I look down in my Jack-O-Lantern bucket...that's the third house on this street alone to give me raisins. I pop open a box of Nerds and pour some of it's sweet calming sugar down my throat, feeling it's rush like liquid gold in my veins. My nerves calm a bit and I walk out past the large hedge to the sidewalk. Looking up the street I can see more kids have begun to come out and start their Trick or Treating. They don't even know the pain I've saved them. They don't even know the boxes of raisins they won't have to deal with this Halloween. I've got to hurry before it gets too crowded.



"It's gonna be a long night."

The Choosing



We have gathered here on this hallowed eve. We are many. Bold in our finest colors we stand shoulder to shoulder. Nurtured this long year, we have grown strong and hearty. Many have not reached this eve. Many were not fit to proceed. The weak and scrawny have been sent away as befits the tradition. In time the ceremonies will commence and we who remain will face - The Choosing.



The Choosing is the first real step in our path to legend. Not everyone will pass this ceremony. Some of us will be left behind to die and our useless corpses will be thrown away to rot or to be food for the ravens. You may look on that as barbaric or callous but such is The Choosing...it is an honor to make it even this far. The Choosing is a great and powerful ceremony - a night that we have looked towards as the very reason for our existence. Greater honor awaits those in this crowd who pass The Choosing. Greater horrors await as well...greater horrors and certain destruction. We have been told what the future holds for those who pass The Choosing. We know what this evening will mean for those with the strength and core to continue. We have prepared ourselves for pain and the end of life that follows tonight. This is our purpose and we are proud to follow in the footsteps of those before us.



Our duty has been passed down from time immemorial. We will fight the good fight and die for our cause. Our sacrifice will keep the evil spirits at bay. We will die in horrible ways but it will not be in vain. Our maimed and tortured corpses will stand as warning to those who seek to do evil. Our disfigured and distorted forms will evoke an inner light and say, "No! - Evil did not pass this evening." We will stand watch over those who choose us and we will protect them with our very lives. Stabbed and disected to the very last of us. So it has been for ages...so it will be tonight.



Prepared for The Choosing, we stand ready at attention, quietly awaiting the words of commencement. No words are spoken among the ranks. No movement can be made. We are chosen not for what we are but for what we can become and it takes a special eye to perceive that power that lies within each one of us. An eye that must be able to look beneath the skin. An eye that must be able to see us - past our very core - past our guts and into the light within us. What that light will illuminate is different for every one of us but if it is special it will be seen...and it will be chosen. The words of commencement begin.



"Ladies and gentleman...the Pumpkin Patch is open. Please point out your chosen pumpkin or 'Jack o' Lantern to be' to one of our sales staff and we'll ring you up for it and bring it round to your car. We also have a selection of carving tools and scoops to remove the core available at the register"



It has begun. Glory be...The Choosing has begun.