We enter this story, not at the beginning but at the end. The scene, a jagged precipice overlooking an autumn forest, bathed in silver moonlight. On the top of the precipice stand two figures, the first, perhaps the most unremarkable man you’ve ever seen. A single look at him would say ‘Middle-Aged Middle Management’ because that’s exactly what he was. But beside him, oh yes, beside him, stood a grand fellow indeed! Not human of course, you mustn't be prejudiced, but decidedly regal, with his head a flaming Jack O’ Lantern, and his well-dressed aristocratic body wrapped in a purple cloak which blows gently in the wind. Ah, yes! This is him. The King of All Hallows Eve.
This man, you see, his name was Milbert. He was a dull soul who had been taken on a tour of Halloween very similar to the one a distant ancestor of his had been taken on regarding Christmas near two hundred years ago. Is he taking it well? Is he repentant? Well, let’s listen in on their conversation
“Now do you understand it?” says the King, “Do you understand the True Meaning of Halloween and swear to keep it always in your heart?”
Milbert isn’t looking at the Pumpkin King. He’s trembling. Partly from cold. His thin collared shirt isn’t enough protection against a cold October evening. Partly from terror, because of what he saw below. Below the jagged rocks, down below sat an empty clearing in the autumn wood. In the center of that clearing burned a bonfire and around that bonfire. Well, around it danced every Halloween horror. Ghosts, Witches, Mummies, and Monsters. It sounds comical, but that’s not how it looked.
Because for once, these creatures weren’t caricatures of monsters but actual monsters. The ghosts sit partially mutilated, moving unnaturally, their translucence grimly reflecting the nascent firelight. The Undead stand rotting, jaws falling, pus dripping from bony tendons. The Witches cackle, ethereal and mesmerizing, their spells changing them continually from old hags to young maidens and back again. Werewolves howl and growled, and stared up at Milber with yellow eyes. Other monsters too terrible to name, gibbered and writhed dancing around the light of the fire. They were real and had all the terrible fullness that reality gives a thing.
“You do know it, right Milbert?” says the King, “After all these trials, you haven’t forgotten the true meaning of Halloween?”
Milbert shakes his head, unable to keep his eyes off the terrible dance below, “No,” he says at last, “I know what the true meaning of Halloween is.”
“Then tell me,” says the King, “I want to hear it from you.”
Milbert stares into the fire below, increasingly as transfixed by it as the monsters are, “In the dark age of humanity we sat in jungles… haunted by terrible threats. Wild beasts threatened to eat us, dark magicians cursed us with misfortune and demons lurked to catch our souls. We’ve come so far these days. With technology, irreligion, democracy, and civilization we think that we’ve at last defeated all these things. We tell ourselves that our fears are irrational, that they’re just a by-product of the dark old days, but they aren’t. Darkness is always lurking around the other corner. And we ought to fear it. We should bear it. But we’ve forgotten fear.”
“Indeed,” says the King of All Hallows Eve, “But all is not dark! Look, the sun rises, and will soon cast all the ghosts and ghouls back into the shadows where they belong. For following fear comes Hope. With this dawn comes the Day of All Saints, where you celebrate the few candles of God that lit the darkness, and following that comes Advent where you celebrate the Hope that gave rise to them. Hope and fear are twins. Without darkness what did the light of Christmas come to cast out? You wish only to have Hope, but without Fear, you lose it and fall into monotony. Come! It’s daybreak and the Night is mine no longer. Let’s get you back to your home”
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Happy All Hallows’ Eve
Love this