The flight of Halloween
In this month of dressing up, having fun, don’t forget family, love, and romance.
More real than a dream, arms out, she flies without effort above the purple-shadowed valleys, their craggy cliffs reaching skyward, trying to hold onto the fading daylight.
Her senses tuned to nature’s bouquet, that momentary scent of orange blossom, sage, wild verbena and pine as she soars over the early autumn grasses and the deep still lakes, so deep, the water creatures’ eyes never close.
On she flies into the growing darkness of the east as stars slowly fill the sky’s great dome.
Below, fewer than the scattered stars above, isolated campfires twinkle. Occasional sounds of singing voices float upward; while instruments are strummed, joining the mellow aching tones from the flutes. Rhythms, heartbeats, like distant thunder, blending with the sounds of unseen lovers embracing in the secret of the night.
But Halloween flies on, looking for the man she can make hers.
On and on she flies into the dark enormity of a long-ago memory, flying not so much away, as toward some future where he waits, wrapped in a rough blanket beside a small fire in the chilled, silent, night air.
She knows her immenseness is made greater by his smallness. Halloween knows what waits below the shimmering of the stars, in that forgotten between time, the sound of his voice and the question he’ll ask when she finally sits beside his unquenchable fire.
He will come out of darkness and sit, crouched, listening for her presence, while small, shadowed faces, lined with fun and evil, flesh wrapped around bones like blankets, warding off the cold, hands circling offering flickering flames as though lighting candles for those never to be in attendance.
She knows which shoreline, his footprints left in the ancient sand, the pebbles he kicked, and the lingering passion of his life.
The closer she comes, the greater the sound of ringing celebration.
Far below, the dark earth rises to meet her descent. She knows he will have to walk bare foot on fire to reach her, while she will feel only the cool sand between her tender toes, finally crouching next to the one waiting in the rough blanket.
He looks up, his eyes sunken, his pallid hairy cheeks, and a smile that shows his crooked monument of teeth.
When he speaks, she hears the song of his life, the sound of birds, wild animals, glaciers creaking at the ends of the earth, lava gushing from the planet’s heart, and the tides that rise and fall. Finally, when she arrives at his side, all he says is:
Hi Jenny, you didn’t have to dress up for me.
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