There’s a whirring in my head, a pounding in my chest. It’s All Hallow’s Eve once again, and here I sit at this hallowed hearth of memories, soaked in a blur of the past, present, and future. It doesn’t seem that a year has passed since last the veil was so thin. I remember stomping the pavement of my childhood neighborhood, sharing a surreal bit of tradition and nostalgia with my son. I recall a lively visit to the incomparable Haunted Hydro. I suppose it has been one full trip around the Sun since Halloween last graced this Earth, but in this upside-down era nothing truly seems as it is — not even time, especially not time.
It is with a heavy heart and sheer exhaustion that I enter this most odd Halloween. A decades-old tradition will conclude on this night and I am both saddened and honored to be a part of its passage. I’ll don the costume and smear my face with paint to become a slice of my subconscious one more time, perhaps for the last time. It will be painful and exhilarating and perhaps even revelatory.
Haunters are built different, and like so many that came before us the time has come for the show to go dark and for these memories to live on in the collective ether. We’ll honor the traditions of old, and we will not go quietly into that good night. We shall rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Happy Halloween.
