I Miss My Wife

Charles Martin stood in the aisle of Halloween Center USA, adjusting items on the shelves, watching kids and their parents rushing through the entrance and file into the spooky warehouse. Each kid had to be restrained by their parents from knocking over items on the shelves. All he wanted to do was find some discount candy to hand out at dark to kids from all around his neighborhood.                                    Today is the day that the warehouse will do at least forty percent of the year’s business. Costumes of ghosts, witches, mummies, and all other creepy sorts of gear were hanging on every wall and door, giving the warehouse a sort of eerie feeling.                                                                                                   Charles had not celebrated Halloween for a few years now. The lack of participation was not because he didn’t enjoy the holiday. It just brought back too many memories of how he and his wife, Arleen, used to fix the house up every October thirty-first, giving out all sorts of goodies and decorating their already beautiful home. Charles would almost come to tears when he thought of how Arleen used to smile every time she gave out a piece of candy, and how she used to walk around the house and blush at the decorations.                                                                                                                                        But now he felt lonely around this time of the year. Arleen died just four years ago at the young age of thirty-three from leukemia. For the first few months after her death he was rarely seen in public, except for when it was time to go to work, and come back home again. It took him a while to get back to being able to want to go shopping and seeing friends and family. When he was seen he would always be wearing one of the flannel shirts and a pair of jeans that his wife, at his request, would always buy him for birthdays and Christmas; the only time he dressed different was when the weather did not permit such warm clothing.                                                                                                                                                                          While holding a comic book hero in his right hand, Charles looked down at one of the kids being held onto his left hand by his mother. The kid dropped the comic book hero and managed to pick up a vampire costume. Charles smiled at the kid, remembering the days when his own mother used to always take him to somebody’s costume store to get a Halloween outfit. The kid hit Charles in both the kneecaps while swinging the costume.                                                                                                                                          “Tell the man, ‘Excuse me, sir,’” the kid’s mother explained as the little boy wanted to abrade Charles’ clothes off.                                                                                                                        “Excuse me, sir,” the young kid said. “Happy Halloween!"                                                                                     Charles didn’t say anything. He just kept on smiling and tilted his head to the family and turned around to finish his job of straightening out the shelves. He just wanted to make sure that as soon as his shift was over this afternoon, he would grab a couple of bags of candy to pass out tonight to the local kids.                                                                                                                                                                                                              Shortly after finishing the last candy aisle in the giant store, and after clocking out, he stepped forward to see if he could spot the cash register with the fewest people in line. As he did so, another kid, also being held by his mother, hit Charles in the back of the leg with a mummy costume; both costumes were too soft to cause any damage. Charles then spots aisle four with only two customers; most of the other nine aisles had at least four adult customers, all with at least one kid. He wasn’t in a hurry to leave his place of employment, but he hated standing in long lines.                                                                                                    “That will be $5.82, sir."                                                                                                                        “You know my name, Ann. You don’t call me sir when I’m on the clock,” he joked sarcastically.                               Charles reached into the right pocket of his jeans and pulled out a five-dollar bill and a one-dollar bill. The total included the employee discount, which saved him over a dollar.                                                        Ann startled him when she handed him his change and told a familiar Halloween joke of how her co-worker was wearing a nice costume today.                                                                                                             Charles put the eighteen cents into his right pocket, picked up his bag of goodies, and headed toward the front door. He looked at her as if to say I’ll get you next time with my own joke. As he walked out of the warehouse he wondered to himself if everyone that he passed by thought the same about his clothes as Ann had joked about.                                                                                                                                              Once he was behind the wheel of his burgundy Corolla—he still managed to keep Arleen’s car looking nice the past four years—he tossed his bags of goodies on the back seat and pulled out of the warehouse’s parking lot. Before exiting on the nearby highway, he took one last look at the giant witch in black atop the name of the warehouse. As he hit the highway he glanced through the rear-view mirror to see the witch again, noticing how she was beginning to rock back and forth on her broom as he drove away.                                                                                                                        Moments later he could see his house in view. Shortly afterwards he was close enough to see the back yard. Strangely, the bench he built for Arleen caught his attention. He remembered how he had built it for her so that they could both spend moments in the summertime under a few trees and tell stories about their childhood or just relax and look at the world from a different view.                                                 He parked the car on the side of the house and went into the backyard. He sat on the bench for about an hour. As the temperature grew colder from the setting of the sun, he quickly realized that it was time to go inside and get ready for the trick-or-treaters.                                                                                                After he enters the house, he turned on the light switch at the front door and the one on the front porch to make sure that the kids knew that he was giving out treats. He then looked at the thermostat, which read sixty-one degrees. He turned it up another notch to knock the chill off.                                        As soon as he stepped into the kitchen, he felt relief from the warm air coming through the vents. He pulled the tea kettle out of the dishwasher, opened the cabinet over the sink, gathered a few tea bags from a side drawer, and twenty minutes later he could hear a whistle of warmth coming from the stove.                                                                                                                                                                                                          After pouring a cup of tea, Charles went into the living-room and sat down on the sofa to watch what was left of the evening news. Shortly afterward, as he managed to stretch out on the sofa, the TV was watching him.                                                                                                                                                                    While dreaming, he can hear the wind blowing leaves against the house, smashing against the front door. In the dream he gets up and bellows to the front door, opening it as quickly as possible, remembering the trick-or-treaters. There are so many leaves twirling in front of him that he can’t see anything else but the autumn colors of red, orange, brown, yellow, and a tint of purple. He stood in amazement as the leaves begin to take the shape of a woman. Then, after all the body parts were assembled, a face appeared. It was the face of his wife, Arleen. The wind was still blowing, making the same sound the tea kettle had made earlier. Now the body was that of a real human, except made entirely of leaves, as perfect as any female could ever be, spinning and twirling in front of him.                                      “How have you been, honey?'                                                                                                                       “I’ve been doing great, Arleen.” He was so happy to see his wife again, no matter what shape or form she was in. “I’ve missed you so much.”                                                                                                                     Arleen reaches out to touch him.                                                                                                                        He does the same. He wants to kiss her, but this surprise visit has him aghast.                                       She moves closer to him. “What’s wrong, honey? Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”                                        “You look as lovely as ever before."                                                                                                                        When he finally manages to get the strength to reach out to her, all the leaves fall to the ground and the wind stops blowing. Even in sleep his eyes began to water.                                                                             When Charles jerked himself up into a seating position on the sofa he accidentally knocked over his tea, which was sitting on a coffee table in front of him. He wipes the moisture from his eyes. The tea kettle whistled loudly which was the reason he woke up, unaware he forgot to turn the stove off earlier.                                 Before he could rush into the kitchen to grab some paper towels, he hears noise at the front door. Again! He rushed toward the window to see who it was. The first thing he noticed was a car with its headlights on parked outside the front of the house. When he looked to the left of the porch, he saw two mini horror creatures: one was a girl dressed as a witch, and the other was dressed in a red suit which covered the face, with black spider webs painted everywhere.                                                                                        He ran to the front door and opened it.                                                                                                               “Trick-or-treat!” the little creatures happily screamed.                                                                                                 Unprepared, Charles hurried back inside and pulled out the candy from under the pillow he had dreamed on. He took two lollipops and two pieces of chocolate from either bag and placed one apiece into each monster’s bag.                                                                                                                                               “Thank you, sir!” they shouted in unison.                                                                                                                       Well-mannered kids, Charles thought to himself. He waved at the lady driving the kids around, went back inside and closed the door, and quickly opened it again and peeped out, admiring the autumn leaves that were scattered across the front lawn. The way they were strangely color-coordinated in front of him, meant that his wife had visited—for real! He smiled graciously, knowing that she probably visits all the time.                                                                                                                                                                                    After cleaning up what was left of the spill, he decided to turn off the porch light and turn down the volume on the TV. He then sat quietly on the sofa staring into an endless tunnel of emptiness, all the while thinking about his wife. For the first time in four years he felt that from now on the world belonged to him, because his wife was not only in his dream world, but also in his real world, and her visit was all he would need to be happy for the rest of his life.