Halloween Special: BEWARE THE VISITORS ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT

 

A Halloween treat for my friend, Misky, -- a chapter of SAME AS IT NEVER WAS that will not appear in my book soon to be published.

It is self-contained, but occurs directly after THE END IS THE BEGINNING:

https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-end-is-beginning.html

SING YOUR DEATH SONG LIKE AN ORPHAN COMNG HOME

I opened my eyes, ignoring the bruises all along my body grumbling their wake-up call.

What else did I expect when I went to bed, my body tensed hard as a fist by barely surviving Mr. Morton, whatever It was?

Sleep when you thought about it was bizarre.

When the sun sank, so did you … into a bed. You walked a scary world that couldn’t hurt you, helpless against a truly scary world that could … and would.

I got out of the comfy bed of Headmaster Stearns. He had slept comfortable, while the rest of us orphans squirmed on rock-hard cots.

I hoped his corpse shifted painfully in the dirt of his unmarked grave.

I whispered my usual mantra upon leaving the bed, “Redeem the times, for the days are evil.”

“No, young sir,” rasped the harsh voice of Sister Ameal. “Rather the feckless sinners wasting those days make them evil.”

Forcing the words out of a suddenly dry mouth, I said, “You need the permission of the current resident of these quarters to enter … Mr. Morton.”

“Since when?” It rasped, dropping its disguise.

“Since now. My dreams, my rules.”

“How did you know?” It growled, fading away.

I had awakened feeling refreshed. That never happens in my waking world.

I felt tears burn at the edges of my eyes.

Why does a man cry? 

Not like a woman; not for that. Not for sentiment.

St. Marok's had burned sentiment out of me. 

I know, stupid, right?

(But I was eighteen and thought I knew it all.)

A man cries over the loss of something, something alive.

A man can cry over a sick animal that he knows won't make it … which was why I never tried to keep pets here.

The death of a child: a man could cry for that, or for the death of his childhood. Mine had arrived still-born here.

Not because things are sad. A man cries not for the future nor for the past but for the present.

I was getting sappy. Sappy got you dead at St. Marok’s.

Here, the enemy was not merely another group of human beings with a differing political persuasion. 

The enemy here was death.

“You called?” 

whispered a female voice, sounding like a lost wind blowing across sandpaper.

Another unwanted visitor. Had Charles Dickens taken over my Halloween nightmare?

I noticed the locale had changed. I was standing  amidst a field of lonely tombstones.

Not in New Orleans then. We were below sea-level where buried coffins rose with the next hard rains.

In that way, you couldn’t keep a good man down … or a bad one for that matter.

“There are far worse places than this orphanage, mortal.”

“You going to show me slides?”

“There is Auschwitz.”

“You say that name as if it should mean something.”

“It will in the future when you stumble across it and its few pitiable survivors.”

A flash of horrifying images slid across my mind’s eye.

“Merde! Why did you show me that?”

“You asked for a slideshow. I gave you one. My Samhain trick for you. Something to look forward to.”

Death reached out as if to ruffle my hair. “I forgot. You find this gesture demeaning for some odd reason.”

“Go away!”

Death laughed, and it was the sound of an ice floe breaking apart.

“Oh, no, little alley puppy. I am no product of your bruised psyche. Death is one Entity that cannot be ordered away … ever … especially on Samhain’s Eve.”

“Lucky me.”

“You have no idea. But in the months to come, you will, my child.”

“You mean I’m ….”

“I will tell you nothing about yourself. But I will tell you about me.”

Death sighed, and it sounded like the soft breeze from an open tomb. “Do you know what scares me?”

She shivered, and that scared me more than even her appearing in my nightmare.

“Sometimes what looks out at you from a person's eyes died back in childhood. But what is dead in there still looks out. It is not just the body looking at you with nothing in it. There is still something in there, but it died and just keeps on looking and looking and looking.”

Her shivers grew worse. “It cannot stop looking. My taking them is redundant. But take them I do.”

A coldness emanated from her in numbing waves. “Sometimes, then, they thank me. Thank me!”

Death faded slowly away. I felt my hair ruffled.

“There. I did it anyway. Happy Halloween … my son.”

“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

– Wallace Stephens