Halloween short stories

The Vertex

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RDP SATURDAY: PRISM

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Do you know how a prism works?

Prisms are made from glass, plastics or fluorite and how they are shaped will determine how the light that enters them will be dispersed. I understand that and even if I don’t grasp it all on an academic level,  I have seen it and enjoyed the results of that scientific fact.

I also believe that there are times when I think that experiences  behave the same way.

I think there are moments that hit some specialy crafted moment in time or maybe even a person and they split apart into an array of images and actions for just a few seconds, and they hold that shape and then they drift apart and there is no way to prove they were really ever there.

Two days ago on the train home I was sitting behind two women who were cleaning their phones of messages and pictures. They were chatting about where to get their nails done and what resturaunts were open when one woman gasped and said, ” somebody just got hit by a train!’

There were a dozen of us in the car and we were all ears.

” Where? ” her friend asked.

” Kent. The train is stopped in Kent. ”

But we just left Kent.  ” Her  friend  held her hand out and she passed her the phone.

Someone asked, ” did we hit someone? ”

The answer was the train kept moving and we all started to check our phones- none of us had that message.

Her friend looked down at her friend’s phone. ” Oh, look this message is old it’s from a few months ago. ”

She said she felt stupid and of course no one agreed because   who hasn’t had a ghost message pop back on our phones now and again or run across an old message and thought it was new?

We were at my stop about twenty minutes later and when I got home and settled in my phone buzzed at me.

I looked at it and saw the text that the train behind us had been stopped in Kent because of a ” medical emergency “.

” Medical emergency is the polite way of saying that someone had been hit by a train.

So this little moment in time may have been a coincidence. It could have been one random then was really there.

Or maybe for one moment reality split apart and it came back together in the best way it knew how.

Maybe.

The Silver Handle

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RDP Monday: Handle

 

I couldn’t take your hand, for our last walk that day

in October.

Instead

I took up the silver handle and walked as close as I could to you.

I thought I could feel you, I wanted to feel you but

I was afraid I’d drop you.

We all were.

On that day

in October,

it was raining and cold and the orange and red leaves of autumn were drowning in the

gutters.

The woman in the smart black suit and sensibly manicured nails gave me the key to your new home.

She rested it in the palm of my hand, I barely felt it’s weight.

It disappeared  until a week ago.

I found it in our car, it was in  the counsel between our seats hidden under a coupon for a free

yogurt.

I lifted it up and I was surprised.

It felt heavier then I remembered.

I took it as a sign.

It could only mean one thing,  this was an invitation

 to your home and I think I will pay you a visit.

I wonder if I will recognize you.

I am preparing myself, that I may not.

 

But October is here and Halloween is near and this is the  best time for me to drop in 

and take you out.

Maybe we will use that coupon for the free yogurt.

 

and when we are done with our visit, I’ll take you back to your home and  lay you to rest.

Again.

Sweet Treats

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Putting My Feet In The Dirt October Prompt #4– Blue Honey Blue

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Each day for a week before Halloween Maudie Valadian sits in her small warm kitchen lit by pale blue homemade candles and the pale red light of the setting Sun and she patiently wraps her special candies in black and purple wax paper.

Her freshly carved pumpkins are lined up on her kitchen counter and, as they do every Halloween, they smile their empty approving  smiles as they watch her reach into the bowl in the center of her wooden table and choose a piece of candy.

She holds each piece up to the window above the kitchen sink and she peers into it before she sets it down onto the colored wax paper. Then with three quick spider like movements with the fingers of her left hand she wraps them up firmly and  then she carefully places each piece in a wicker basket lined with a soft orange cloth.

Sometimes she doesn’t like what she sees and she says, ” Hmmm, maybe next year. Maybe next year. We shall see.”

Then she puts it back into the bowl  and chooses piece and as the Sun continues to set she works with a smile- at least it looks like a smile- on her face.

Smile or not, Maudie  she keeps one of her dark eyes fixed on the window  and continues wrap her candy as smoothly and effortlessly as a dry autumn leaves  being blown down the street outside of her front door.

And just as the last of the Sunlight disappears from her window and her small kitchen is bathed in darkness  she pushes her chair back with a little sigh  and after she stands she pulls her basket towards her and looks down into it.

She dips her hand into it and stirs the candies around.

” I’ll need a few more. Just a few more and by Halloween I should have more then enough. ”

She pushes her chair back under the table and she takes her basket in hand and she moves through the darkness of her kitchen and the darkness that lives in her hallways to her front door.

Before she opens it she takes a small knife with a bone handle from the little table next to the door and she drops it in her basket. ” Blue honey, I need more of the blue ones.”

And Maudie Valadian, the sole proprietor of Creepy Halloween Eye Candies goes to work.

 

 

 

Something Olde Something New

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Emily Brocklesby did not want to pose for her portrait.

She did not want to wear the  new dress her mother had picked out for her . She did not want to wear her Great Grandmother’s cameo because it looked like the woman in it had no eyes.

She did not want to borrow her sister’s favorite wing back chair from the library upstairs for her to sit on because it wasn’t her favorite chair and shouldn’t she get something she wanted for herself today – of all days? Wasn’t this her special day?

To top all of it off, she did not want her Aunt to cut the blue Forget- Me- Nots from the garden and tie them together in a little bouquet for her to hold because she didn’t like flowers.

Nobody was listening to her.

Mr., Fenton was the photographer and even though she did not dislike Mr. Fenton,  she did not want him to pose her like a wax figure or a doll- she didn’t want him to lift her chin or arrange her feet. She didn’t want him to move the hair away from her eyes and she did not want him to fuss with her hands.

They were ugly.

She didn’t want him to  talk to her about how lovely she looked because she knew that was a lie.

Emily Brocklesby who left this earth on October 31, 1910 did not want to have her picture taken.

Emily Brocklesby  just wanted to rest in peace.