All Hallows Eve

It was a crisp fall day. One of those where the air feels like glass, but the crunching of fallen leaves sounds like a lullaby. The sky was gray blue, the earth cold and solid. Jack felt strong. He’d lived his whole life on this plot of land. He knew his neighbors – sturdy, reliable folk for the most part. They tended to their property, grew life from roots in its soil. Made the world green and beautiful. 

Visitors would come through sometimes, kicking up their carefully settled spaces, grabbing whatever they’d like from the vine as if the world was theirs. Jack didn’t like visitors. He preferred the creatures of the soil. The bugs and worms that turned the dirt, making it rich and full of life. Their work encouraged Jack to do his own. He, too, was full of life. 

He’d lived there since he was born. He was nurtured on this land and grew till it became his own. He was happy. He was well. Until the people came. 

First, he heard elated yells and stomping. They covered the earth in footprints, the worms’ beautiful aeration crushed in one second. He saw pointing, figures running through his fields. Jack observed, quietly, from his home. He made no movements, hoping the people would simply pass by. They usually did. They’d steal from his neighbors, at times, but his land had so far remained untouched during every last raid. 

But this time was different. The people had intentions in their steps. They approached Jack from behind. Suddenly, large, calloused hands gripped him tight. Just as fear rushed through him, the sharp shink of a blade cut the flow of life right from his soul.

It wasn’t pain he felt, not exactly. Just an apparent difference. A sudden separation from his home in a way he felt was both natural and yet obscene. He felt two smaller, softer hands clumsily lift him from the ground where he’d fallen to the side. A child? He felt disconnected, floating, caught in the other’s grip. His insides turned. He wanted to scream to his neighbors, to warn them, but no words came. 

Jack was carried away, the dusty blue skies disappearing behind tattered branches nearly barren of leaves, till even that suddenly turned beige. A false sky, with false light. Then more movement than Jack had ever experienced – rolling and bouncing and bruising – with the sunlight fading at odd, scattered angles. He felt ill, damaged, mute. Worried that despite how long he’d lasted on this earth, he wouldn’t last through whatever these people had planned for him. There was urgency in their chatter, an excitement that he feared. 

Then there was stillness, the slamming of doors, more hands handling his tender body. Their haphazard grip and buoyant steps sickened him further. Until finally, he was stationary once more. It was unnerving to be under a plaster sky, resting on a wooden table instead of the soft, life-giving comfort of his home. 

They left him, and Jack sat, cold and growing colder, unable to move. Darkness fell. 

The people returned, filling the space with false light. The child was climbing around Jack, leaning forward. The two larger ones were smiling, speaking with calm, authoritative voices. They began to prepare. Thick hands centered Jack on the table. Others placed towels and a large, shining spoon nearby. Finally, they brought over a knife. The blade reflected the lights above. Jack could see his curved reflection above the hilt, where the largest person, a man, gripped it firmly. The child was even more frenzied, jumping up and down and making the table shake. The man holding the knife gave a stern word. The child calmed. Jack did not.

The knife bearer gripped Jack’s head, turning it this way and that. They pointed to his left side, and all muttered in agreement. Then the knife bearer placed the tip of the blade at the curve of Jack’s mind, and plunged forward. Jack felt his skin break, the flesh tear, and his insides squelch aside to make room for the knife. He felt life leave him. The child cheered as the large hands gripped Jack tightly, turning him as he sawed off the crown of his head. 

The first strike was the sharpest pain. Each saw through his flesh invoking more suffering, suffering that simultaneously faded to a dull discomfort – a sensation so wrong, Jack couldn’t classify the feeling, put a name to the horror. 

The large man cut through the last of Jack’s crown, completing his deathly circle. He grasped and pulled, lifting off the crest. Sinew hung from the piece of dead flesh in the man’s hands, more of it dripping, hanging in the curves of Jack’s skull. The child leaned forward, eagerly gazing inside.

They placed aside the large knife and Jack’s crown. The other person placed the spoon in the child’s hand. It began to eagerly hollow out Jack’s mind, scraping the metal against his inner flesh, grasping the innards with its bare hands, pulling them into the fresh air they were never meant to see – not like this. Jack was meant to pass at home, in the natural way of things. He was meant to lay on the earth and let the world take him, gently, slowly. Not like this.

Jack felt empty. Pain wasn’t a sensation anymore, but simply a factor of his existence. He was barely aware of the large man lifting the knife once again, once Jack’s innards lay in a wet pile beside him. They placed the point against Jack’s side, his aged flesh already bruised from their abuse, and plunged in once again. They carved shapes through his body, removing chunks of flesh and tossing them aside like the husk of corn. Jack felt the last of his life bleed from the hollowed curves of his body. After a moment Jack was simply… no more. 

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Outside, the chilled night air shivered through the trees, lifting the last of the dried leaves from their branches. They danced through the sky, twirling past the homes of the people, their windows long dark. In one, the moonlight glinted off a sharp blade, left unattended on the counter. Bits of flesh lay around it. The leaves came to rest below the sill, beside the porch steps. On these rested a hollowed out body, its face cut with ragged slices. In its mouth rested a candle, illuminating the features from within. Lifeless, glowing, Jack stared into the night.