🎃 Imagine this. It is 3 am and Halloween is over. Costumes have been taken off and packed away in boxes, perhaps to be taken out again next year if they haven't been outgrown. Empty candy bowls sit on entryway tables. Toilet paper hangs strung across wilted lawns and barren tree branches. Sheep have removed their wolf’s clothing with relief. Masqueraders with masks removed, mermaids who have traded tails for sweatpants. A woman walks down the center of an empty suburban street, shaking from the cold. She peers around with wilde, curious eyes as if she's seeing the world for the first time. She is drenched in salt water, as if she had just crawled from the ocean. She wears an odd combination of tattered clothing - remnants of a fantastical gown and a comfortable sweatshirt - that doesn't quite make sense. There is something very odd about her. Nevertheless, she simply walks down the street. Finally, she reaches a house that looks like all the others. But it is not like the others. Because it is hers. There are figures in the window, anxiously awaiting her return home. With a warm smile cracking the shell-shocked exterior of her face, she ascends the porch stairs. There is a Jack-O-Lantern perched by the front door. There is a tealight candle at its center, the dancing glow casting shadows from deep within the carved, jagged-toothed smile. And as she watches, the flame🕯️ finally🕯️flickers🌬️OUT 🎃

-submitted May 18, 2023