By A Site Friend
11-2-23

I left the porch light off so as not to draw any knocks or intrusions from Trick or Treaters...if there might be any. I just wanted peace and the dark, still night was something, I decided, I wished to savor. I let my pet kids out into the fenced yard, with me monitoring the state of the neighborhood from the door. It was just after dark.

While all this was happening, I noticed a small movement in the darkness moving up the sidewalk…heading right toward the front of my house. It was a little 'Grim Reaper' and his twenty-something father who appeared to be holding an infant.

My porch deck is maybe 10" above the yard grass. So that, and the distance to the little family, with backlighting from the streetlights, and possibly some minification due to my myopia, provided me the illusion that the little fellow was no more than knee high. Up on the porch he came.

The thought of my dogs barking aggressively and causing an un-neighborly ruckus popped into my mind. Within a second or two, the little Reaper had advanced to my front door and startled me with 'Trick or Treat!’ in a surprisingly loud, town crier-ish voice. I was still worried about my dogs' reaction to strangers and noise up on the front porch and, without thinking, I reflexively barked-back at the tiny Reaper with a slightly harsh-sounding, 'I don't have anything!’.

It worked…and I could feel the little one's instant, crestfallen, sense of defeat and disappointment. Those vibes quickly snapped me back into focus about what I had just done to him. It was not a good feeling. I quickly, and apologetically, said, 'I'm sorry...I don't have anything.’ The gracious father said 'That's okay’...and they stepped down off the porch and moved out toward the next darkened target home on my deathly empty and virtually lifeless street.

I looked up and down the neighborhood and noticed that only ONE house had its porch light on. Further, none of the homes I could see from my corner lot appeared to be taking any notice of Halloween at all. No decorations, no lights, no ghostly white sheets…not even one lighted Jack O'Lantern. There was simply nothing to be seen.

While trying to process such a desultory sight, I was taken back to when I was a little boy, decked out and seeking goodies to put in my treats bag. Back then, it would have been one home with the porch light off...and the entire rest of the block festooned with carved, grinning, candle-lit pumpkins, decorations, spooky noises and crawling with parents, toddlers and pre-teens all dressed up as ‘monsters’ or cartoon characters of one sort of another. No more. The Halloween ‘Great Pumpkin’ has gone dark, extinguished by the new, woke communist America.

I then remembered there were some quarters in my car which I use to get water from a kiosk well. If they happened to come back by my house, I decided I would put out $1.50 on the trunk of my car...to make amends to the little
guy.

They did come back...but on the other side of the street. They passed by, turned right at the corner and moved off into the unlighted side avenue. I could hear the tiny Reaper calling out, intermittently, 'Trick or Treat...Trick or Treat ...Trick or Treat’ into the empty, unresponsive darkness.

The totality of this little melodrama left me in something of a sad and melancholy mood.

We have lost so much.