“Don’t stare too long at your shadow
in case you see it move without you.
Don’t look at the trap door to the attic
in case you see it beginning to open.
Don’t let your hand hang over the bed
in case something takes it while you sleep.”-STEPHEN DOBYNS, Fear
Dear Tim,
Good Evening, my friend, good evening indeed. With quivering hand I write you; with gall I regale you; with spleen I malign you.
My favorite holiday is Halloween. I love tricks, treats, costumes — wearing a mask so as not to pollute the world with my wretched visage. This is the one day of the year when I can be what truly I want to be: anything but myself.
I was a beautiful child, Tim: blonde, featherlight, with ivory skin and eyes like an oceanscape. My parents lauded me, extolling my outward beauty; yet never once did they bother to ask me of the desires that lay beneath my skin. At parties I was dressed in bowties, gifted cakes, banquets, feasts with fish and fresh bread — all for my looks, never for my mind. Oh, fickle factotum of fate, please forgive my sweet and callow birthgivers! Their minds were simply too juvenile to recognize that, since the day of my delivery, there had been a wickedness bathing behind the pools of my irises; a dark grotto, gurgling and churning, echoing an insidious overture into my every night.
After learning to suppress my more sordid urges through high school, into college, and even through graduate school, I knew that soon I would slip. Alone at my dining room table one recent evening, eating a filet of roast duck, I stared into my sullen face through the mirror. Adulthood had done my frame and figure well; yet it had done little to assuage the tremors of tumult that were swimming lanes inside my veins. On this particular eve, mouth full of meat and lentils, I almost choked upon the realization I had stumbled across: Tomorrow! Tomorrow was Halloween!
I lay in bed all night, cloaking myself in my sheets as would a sick caterpillar. Would tomorrow beget my metamorphosis? My skin was warm, but I was not ill. I was perspiring, but to the touch I was not wet. What was happening to me, Tim? Would Halloween precipitate my final capitulation into the dark? Every bit of slumber eluded me; my eyes remained open till dawn.
The day slinked by in a tedium of marginalia, tedium of chores, tedium of repressed urges. I watched television, watered the fichus, stroked my moustache deep into the setting autumn sun. Puffing on my pipe and staring out the window, I felt a burgeoning in my nether parts. In my self-imposed somnambulistic state, I had almost forgotten that night was upon me — no, Halloween was upon me. Drat! Double drat! I had not yet prepared a proper costume. Out my picture window, I spotted several trick-or-treaters, youngsters in store-bought costumes, approaching my walk. Enshrouding myself in my curtains, I held my breath and prayed that they bypass my house.
DINGGGGGG DONGGGGGGG!
The doorbell bulleted a terrible reverb through my head.
DINGGGGGG DONGGGGGGG!
Again! The blasphemous youth! With flurried steps, I sprinted to my cellar and slammed the door behind me. I could not be seen dispensing sweet treats without a proper costume. But what to wear? I simply had no ideas. In my cellar lay jar upon jar of jam, peas, beans: all provisions deemed vital for sustenance upon the imminent collapse of society. I scoured the shelves of my bunker, holding peaches, condensed milk, pickled meats up to the light. Nothing would do. I lay rest the jars, stifled a whimper, and padded back to the cellar steps. But at that moment, something caught my eye. Just when I thought I had exhausted all possible avenues for crafting a costume, I spotted, in the darkest corner of the cellar, a plump orange comestible; its sickly stalk, reminiscent of my own, was craned in intrigue.
“How did you sneak in here?” I asked the seasonal gourd.
My new friend did not answer.
Out of nowhere, a metallic glisten flickered into my eye. Perched fortuitously on my work desk was a beaming, gleaming meat cleaver. Well, I sneered, looks like I’ll be having the last laugh! I rushed toward the blade, clasped it in my hand, and charged at the pumpkin. My weapon brandished high above the fool’s autumnal head, I cheered as would a savage beast, and brought the trenchant edge down upon my very own neck.
What a turn of events! I recoiled as blood spewed in comical spurts to every which corner of my cellar-cum-boucherie. The gruesome muse of my twisted youth had taken me in his palm and was clenching his fingers. Raising the blade adjacent to my shoulders, I began to saw fervently at my neck. I simply could not stop, Tim! The pain, though unbearable, was nothing compared to the thrum of pleasure pulsing through my bones. My pumpkin friend, now streaked with blood, began to cackle deliriously.
“That’s right!” he yelped, “keep going!”
Going I kept! I sawed and I sawed and I sawed a bit more. After myriad moribund minutes, my head, which had become little more than a hangnail to a finger, fell to the floor with a thunk. I, somehow still conscious, knelt down and seized my head by its scalp. Stumbling forward, intoxicated with both glee and despair, I reached down and clasped the pumpkin. Then, as one would observe in a graphic yet unrealistic horror film, I affixed the pumpkin to my own twitching brainstem.
Tim, I had done it! I had created a unique and compelling costume! Rushing up my cellar steps, I bolted out of the house. The cool October air felt crisp against my exposed flesh, and the street was filled with all the sights I had expected to see. Children, bags full of sweets; young mothers and fathers, hands in their pockets, basking in their offsprings’ sugar-fueled joy. I too was quite joyous! In fact, I began to dance, jigging my way down the avenue, my severed head raised high above my head like a trophy.
“TRICK OR TREAT!” my skull beckoned. “GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD TO EAT!”
I was in ecstasy, Tim. Finally, after twenty-four years of living a cautious, prudent life, I had done the inconceivable: I had morphed myself into a seasonal centaur, a beast both human and gourd. I thought of my parents, how mortified they would be. It brought a sickly smile to my pumpkin face.
Unfortunately, my delight did not last long. One of the neighborhood’s young fathers happened to be an off-duty police officer, and after asking me to present my ID (which I carelessly left at home), my autonomous skull vomited a medley of blood and spinal fluid upon his child, who, coincidentally, was dressed as the headless horseman. I was arrested on the spot, brought in for questioning, and spent the final minutes of my life in the back of a police cruiser, suffocating in pumpkin innards, blood, vomit, sinews, and tears.
Tears of joy.
Happy Halloween, Tim. I hope this letter finds you well.
Posthumously yours,
Friend
Artwork by @basper01
Originally published at deartimtheblog.tumblr.com.
