GHOSTS.....................

1649

I climbed those wooden, creaking steps, those I could not hear for the crowd's clamour and I would not shake with the cold for fear they thought me nervous when I was terrified as the executioner, I could only see his darting eyes, shook me by the hand and I tipped three gold coins into his to pay for a job well done even though, after my address to those near by, he placed the cold steel on the back of my neck, rested the edge of the axe just where my collar might have been where she had kissed me so lovingly and where my children, the darlings, had thrown their small arms around me to tell me how much they loved their Papa and now these hateful accusers, this misguided tumult was going to take off my head, cut their king in two using a rough fellow to wield their vile instrument in an arc through the Whitehall air in one gory hack in which proceeds some dipped their handkerchiefs and all for what, so that I could come back and restore their faith in me and the monarchy for another four hundred years at least.

.................................

TRICK OR TREAT?

The Halloween rain blew, blasted, blustered at the window pain of number 13 and little Esme peered out with her face painted, mock horror, silly scars and blood. God had tricked her. No treats for her that wet, wettest, cold , coldest end of October night. Esme's mother tried to consol, comfort her but Esme was in no mood for excuses. She wanted what she wanted, needed, pleaded for on Halloween.

"But be reasonable, darling," her mother implored, implied, demanded in her way.

"I want to go trick or treating, " said the little girl with a wave, shake, prod of her satanic trident, the black plastic, made in China, bought in Asda, three pronged toy fork.

Another bucket full of rain hit, smacked, splashed the window and really answered the question for the two, both of them.

"Well if we can't go out I'll just have to do it here." Esme's painted face cracked a hopeful, furtive smile.

"Of course darling," said her mother. "Let's do it at home."

And so it was that little Esme took her self off to the kitchen to find the very sharp Japanese carving knife. She knew that she had to be careful with it. It was so sharp that it wasn't kept in the cutlery drawer along side all the other knives and spoons and forks. It was kept on its own in a thin wooden box and Esme got it out and held it in her tiny hand. It felt much more real than the black plastic, made in China, bought in Asda, three pronged toy fork.

Esme knocked on the closed door of the front room.

"Who's there?" sang, rang her mother in playful, sing song surprise.

"Trick or treat?" said Esme as she squeezed the comfortable handle of the sharp Japanese carving knife.

...................................

GREAT WAR GHOSTS.

At eleven o'clock on November 11th the guns fell silent and tens of millions sighed with one terrible breath, those with ghastly black bayonet holes, home to the rat, from the dark wet bottom of their muddy unmarked mass graves, some sculptured by metal bullets punctured and pocked like grotesque sponges, some ripped apart in little pieces hung out across the cruel barbed wire, torn limb from bloody limb by high explosive blast, some gassed and blinded, racked with a deadly, drowning cough and those missing, erased from the face of the earth, while the rest were driven stark starring mad; and every year since when the bugle sounds the last post, the Glorious Dead fall in for the ghostly parade that stretches further than the eye might see across continents and generations.
.....................................

SWEETS.

Old Mrs McCloud didn't much like children at the best of times. As far as she was concerned they should neither be seen nor heard. She'd spent most of her long life doing without them and had bad memories of the time she had spent being one. Children, she thought, were a waist of space and that was that. So when they came and knocked at her door at the end of October when the clocks had gone back and it was dark by five, she was ready for them.

They helped themselves greedily to the bowl full of sweets she had on offer.

"Trick or treat" they had shouted when she eventually opened the door. their grabbing fingers snatched up the sweets and they ran off in their plastic capes, gapping fangs and scars, swinging their torches and giggling with glee unwrapping the confectionery and stuffing it in their ghoulish gobs not really tasting the rat poison until it was far too late.

.....................................