Something wicked next door comes...
Haunted by Hallowe'en prep...
A Happy Samhain to one and all! Sure you must have thought the Faeries and the Sidhe my mother oft warned me about in childhood had stolen me away and conjured a spell that I sleep for a thousand years, but no. No such valid excuse for my long absence since last touching fingers to keys here. All I can say is that autumn always makes me feel sleepy and with All Hallows' Eve nearing, let’s hope I remain a little more Sleepy than Hollow this year.
One of my new neighbours has beaten the pants (or rather, the striped leggings) off all us witches this year with her Dead & Breakfast Inn sign and the copious body parts crawling through her lawn while three spooky sisters dance over them in a toxic trance like some scene in The Scottish Play. They are faceless and yet, at twilight when I walk my dog, the visage they each lack takes on an unholy, amber glow as their bodies sway back and forth and scare the literal sh*te out of my mutt.
I pack extra doggy-doo baggies.
My personal Hound of the Baskerville barks incessantly at these fae figures each time in some failed attempt to prove his canine courage. To no avail. He is clearly terrified to the bone and, speaking of bones, he cannot even bring himself to sniff out the various fake ones littering her lawn however much they make him drool. (Thanks, Pavlov.)
INADVERTENT ADD ASIDE:
Every time I think of Pavlov and his experiment, I hear my Irish Da asking me why the villagers recognized The Hunchback of Notre Dame? “Because his face rang a bell!” **Insert maniacal, Irish guffaw here.**
This weekend, I got busy with my own front step. I turn my back with emphasis to the magnificent monstrosity of my neighbour’s yard and crack open one measly bag of fake webbing purchased at the local pharmacy. I try my best, hashtag OkayMaybeNotMyBest, to get into the literal spirit of the season while wearing the identical expression of Mary Tyler Moore when she gazes dispiritedly at packaged meat and tosses it with derision into her cart. I hang one flimsy rubber bat, long past the capacity for echolocation, and muster what I hope appears to my new neighbours as genuine effort by unboxing the large felt tarantula I acquired a few years back. One of its red eyes has since gone missing and the way it glares at my futile effort with its sole remaining orb feels unforgiving and inculpatory. There is not even enough webbing to entangle all eight arms of my accusing arachnid. What might Charlotte weave above my doorway? I shudder to think.
I am just putting the final ditch into last-ditch effort when my neighbour appears suddenly. Not out of a cold funnel of purple mist as you might imagine, but out of the car in her driveway. She waves because she’s friendly and kind. (I genuinely like her.)
In response, I flash her a black-toothed grin and spew forth a few compliments about her eerie exhibit. I try not to choke or resemble Linda Blair projectile vomiting as the snotgreen stream of them runs from my mouth. My neighbour sweetly chuckles as her eyes sweep my doorway and she tries to console me by confessing she hired some local pro outfit to deadhead and decompose her lawn. E’en so, none of us can shake a stick (or broom, or even—cough— a machete) at her this year. We simply must do our utmost not to turn green(er) with envy.
What’s that you say? Ha! No. Her name is not Dorothy. But it is me along with all the other homes on our spooky street who must surrender. That witch next door takes the Fairview Foulview prize!
