Offering to Autumn

© 2004 K.L. Lewis
All rights reserved.

We sit on the front porch, Michael and I, and drink hard apple cider until my face flushes and my head feels like it is on fire. The harvest moon stares down at us like a blind, milky white eye. The shadow of a bat cuts through the air and squeals a predatory nocturne. Ghouls and goblins, lumps of gnarled and knobby greenish-gray flesh, frolic in the lane in front of the house beyond the Technicolor trees.

"Happy Halloween," Michael says, and we walk toward the road together and the cider fire still burns in my skull. The night monsters scatter when we approach. Michael smiles and flips up the bright orange brim of his baseball cap.

"Ya'll ready for this?" he asks. And then he throws me to the ground and my pulpy insides, sweet humors, and stringy flesh are plastered across the pavement. My body bursts apart, but the excruciating pain is fleeting.

"See you next year, Jack," Michael says.

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