Halloween Unseen

A young boy with smudged face paint and dressed in a skeleton suit jogs along the sidewalk and runs straight through me. He stops a few feet in front of me and turns around, the beaming smile on his face has slipped, replaced by a quizzical look. He reaches towards me and I flinch when the touch of his hand slides into my shoulder joint and back out the other side. I will never get used to that feeling. Two other children: a superhero and a zombie; call out to the boy who is looking at me. His head snaps round to find his friends, he shuffles the candy in his plastic jack-o'-lantern, gives one last look in my direction and then runs away.   

  I still do not know if I should be back here. We all get a choice when we go to the other side. We are told that we can return on Halloween each year. Most people choose not to return. Early on in their deaths they do come back, to try and find the people they knew, but the people who loved them move on and begin to forget them and they say the pain of seeing them is far worse than the pain of missing them. This is all new to me, so I will see if they are right soon enough.     

   My feet move silently across the ground. The branches of the trees bend and sway in the wind, causing the leaves to wobble like fish on the end of line; but I can feel none of this. A streetlamp flickers overhead, beneath the gaze of a grimacing crescent moon. As I child I would go out trick or treating and my Dad would follow behind me, when I was too young to go alone. I always told him to stay at home, but by the end of the night we would walk back to the house together, sharing sweets and stories. Every year I would dress in the same astronaut costume. I was obsessed with travelling into space. Now that gravity and oxygen are no longer considerations for me, I guess I can experience that.  

  A car screeches past, causing a chill to run through me. The car tears down the street and off into the distance leaving me with a sick feeling in whatever constitutes as my stomach these days. I cannot remember much about the accident. Only the impact. Snippets of conversation trickled into my mind while I lay in the hospital bed: words flowing towards me, as I drifted down the river of death and into oblivion. I can no longer remember the sound of anyone’s voice. Other than her. Other than Emily. When I arrived at the other place, I searched for her. We were together in the accident and I did not know if she had joined me. My hunt for her consumed me. I scoured my new abyss tirelessly before discovering that she had survived. Whilst I was relieved to hear this, a small part of me wished she had joined me. I know that makes me a selfish and terrible person, not that I am person anymore, but the thought of her growing old without me brings a pain to the place where my heart used to sit.  

   The hour is getting later and some of the smaller children are being ushered home by their parents; all the bedtime stories in the world will not bring them down from their sugar rushes tonight. I begin to pick up the pace and glide down the familiar streets. Another group of kids burst through me, causing the smallest girl to shiver, and let out a scream, before sprinting off towards the next house. Over the road an elderly man holds out a plate of brightly coloured treats and gives a begrudging smile to the children who have pestered him for the countless time. I turn my head and push forward, when I see a small figure in a shiny suit waking towards me. A cardboard helmet, sprinkled with glitter, is obscuring the child's face. I reach out to try and raise the old sunglasses that have been fashioned as a makeshift visor, but my fingers just brush through them.   

  'Emily.' The word escapes my throat in whisper. Snatched up by the wind and thrown into sky. I have not tried to speak in such a long time that the action is now foreign to me.   

  The astronaut stops before me and tilts her head to the side. I want to speak again but fight against it. I watch two small hands grasp the sparkling cardboard helmet and raise it over her head. There she is. My Emily. A little bit taller. Looking a looking bit older. Just as beautiful as ever. I want to take her in my arms and never let her go. Instead I just stand there, knowing that what my heart desires will never come true, and that making my peace with that is the only way avoid an eternity of torment. She glances back at her mother who is standing beside a tree and looking at her phone. We had divorced years before and remained frosty but amicable. This little girl in front of me has already gone through so much heartbreak in her short life, most of it caused by me. She begins to walk in my direction, and I want to cradle her warm body in my hollow shell, instead I step aside and let her walk on past me.  

   ‘I think I want to go home now, Mum,’ she calls out.  

   ‘OK sweetheart. We’ve been out a long time now and it’s getting cold.’  

   ‘Emily shakes her head. ‘It’s just not the same without Dad’  

   Her mum wraps her arms around her and pulls her as close as she can without crushing the costume and covering herself in glitter. ‘I know it’s not, but as long you remember him, he will always be with you.’  

   Emily nods and then turns towards where I am standing, and for a brief moment I am sure I can see a look in her eye, a look that recognises my presence. Then she takes her mum by the hand and walks away. I wait until I can no longer see her then I leave, not that I was ever really there.