Trick or Treat

A ghost stands by the door of my neighbor’s house across the way, arms uplifted, face Munch’s “The Scream,” better to administer the hug of death and frighten those who might pass, a pumpkin glows and leers, a skeleton reclines and nurses a drink in a lounge chair in the yard, the scene is set for giggling children, hands extended in supplication. But my neighbor arose early to greet this new day and driving to work, perhaps sipping at his morning coffee, perhaps tuning the radio, perhaps preoccupied by a siren song in his head, ran under a tractor trailer rig, and when they cut him out my neighbor was no more. Ghost, pumpkin and skeleton still remain near his door to frighten the giggling children.