We’re still over a week away from October, but already I notice that stores are filed with displays of orange and black Halloween Junk: plastic pumpkins, plastic witches--all kinds of pseudo-creepy plastic crap. I guess this stuff is supposed to look scary, but to me the only thing scary is that someone would actually pay money for it.
Meanwhile, in my yard, Mother Nature’s gremlins are getting in on the act, decorating in a way that truly is spooky. The mornings are foggy, damp and dark. In the half-light of dawn, spider webs glisten and drip. Arachnids lurk. I walk near our grape arbor and see that it is full of summer’s fecundity, dense like a jungle with heavy growth. A black metal scare-cat, hung in the arbor to keep birds away from the grapes, mocks me and purrs for me to come closer. I have a flash of a vision: I become convinced that the vines could wrap themselves around my neck, pull me into their snare.
Strangulation would be quick and silent.
I run for my life, back into the house.
