Samhain 2012

TRANSMIT – initiate the Samhain signal – TRANSITION – initiate the darker half – ERROR – spam the black bee frequency.

SECURITY SCAN – shhh, the spyware is unaware. THREATS DETECTED – none, nil, naught, black infinite zeros, immense immeasurable emptiness. Move along. Nothing to see here.

WITNESS – the summer curtains call. Time to reap what you have sown.

Initiate the nights out of time. When boundaries between worlds collapse – a structural imbalance, perhaps – all creatures come and all things mingle. Prepare the feast of the dead. Tonight's festivities will begin in three, two, one...

EMBRACE – the naked shingles of the world.

LISTEN – the nameless aimless petition for prayers. No need to leave the door ajar. The burdened with sin will find a way in.

But why this night?

Come a little closer, we won't bite.

A night for divination. LISTEN – the heartbeat of the girl standing in the mirror. She waits for a boy to peek over her shoulder. So cute, so sweet, such silly superstition. There's no love, little girl, only filth and ambition.

Hop-tu-naa, trol-la-laa.

LISTEN – the screaming, the pain, the broken bones crackling in flame.

Commemorations must be made. Sacrifices. Tell them, Tigernmas. Who held your heads on the Plain of Prostration?

No one.

Ten hundred and three thousand noses crushed. Taste and see. Nothing is free.

But why this night?

Winter is death, darkness is fright. Each year, the weather channel portends both in good measure.

LISTEN – skrak, skrik, skrowlivik. The old gods, myths and beasts all scamper. Think rats trapped in a hamper. But they know how to survive and how to claw through.

HINT – it's nights like this; it's people like you. Initiate the hounding horrors.

The room where you were when... The eyes of the man that... The words she screamed as... Fear sears into memory, takes the mind hostage, keeps the content alive.

The old ones don't die; they dig trenches in your nightmares. They bide their time, drinking sherry and playing cards, waiting for the tin-din of summer symphonies to pass. Waiting for the night when...

Everyone gathers on Samhain.

Hop-tu-naa, trol-la-laa.

Call the tribal assemblies. Light the bonfires. Slaughter your animals for the winter. Soon the fields will be frozen. Soon there'll be nothing left to grind but teeth and imaginations. It's only a few long months in the dark.

But why this night?